Warning #1: an issue has been found with Tower's Pause button which can cause the vehicle to fly to an old position if the vehicle has not sent a position update to Tower in some time.
Warning #2: Copter-3.3.2 fixes a bug found in Copter-3.3.1's desired climb rate initialisation which could lead to a sudden momentary drop when switching from Stabilize or Acro to AltHold, Loiter or PosHold.
Warning #3: Copter-3.3.2 fixes an issue found in Copter-3.3.1 which could lead to hard landings in RTL or AUTO if the WPNAV_SPEED_DN was set too high (i.e. >400 or 4m/s) and/or the WPNAV_ACCEL_Z was set too low (i.e. <100 or 1m/s/s).
Warning #4: a bug was found in Copter-3.3 which could cause a sudden crash if you abort a Take-off initiated from a ground station. Video description is here. The bug is fixed in Copter-3.3.1 so we recommend upgrading.
Note #1: AC3.3-rc8 corrected a long standing bug in the HDOP reporting. HDOP values will appear about 40% lower than previously but this does not actually mean the GPS position is better than before.
Note #2: if upgrading from AC3.2.1 the vehicle's accelerometer calibration needs to be done again.
Note #3: set SERIAL2_PROTOCOL to "3" and reboot the board to enable FrSky telemetry like in previous versions.
Note #4: the wiki will be updated over the next few weeks to explain how to use the new features
Copter-3.3.1 is available through the mission planner. The full list of changes vs AC3.2.1 can be see in the ReleaseNotes and below are the most recent changes since AC3.3.
Sadly this version (and all future versions) will not run on the APM2.x boards due to CPU speed, flash and RAM restrictions.
Changes from 3.3:
1) Bug fix to prevent potential crash if Follow-Me is used after an aborted takeoff
2) compiler upgraded to 4.9.3 (runs slightly faster than 4.7.2 which was used previously)
Changes from 3.3-rc11:
1) EKF recovers from pre-arm "Compass variance" failure if compasses are consistent
Changes from 3.3-rc10:
1) PreArm "Need 3D Fix" message replaced with detailed reason from EKF
Changes from 3.3-rc9
1) EKF improvements:
a) simpler optical flow takeoff check
2) Bug Fixes/Minor enhancements:
a) fix INS3_USE parameter eeprom location
b) fix SToRM32 serial protocol driver to work with recent versions
c) increase motor pwm->thrust conversion (aka MOT_THST_EXPO) to 0.65 (was 0.50)
d) Firmware version sent to GCS in AUTOPILOT_VERSION message
3) Safety:
a) pre-arm check of compass variance if arming in Loiter, PosHold, Guided
b) always check GPS before arming in Loiter (previously could be disabled if ARMING_CHECK=0)
c) sanity check locations received from GCS for follow-me, do-set-home, do-set-ROI
d) fix optical flow failsafe (was not always triggering LAND when optical flow failed)
e) failsafe RTL vs LAND decision based on hardcoded 5m from home check (previously used WPNAV_RADIUS parameter)
Thanks for your testing!
Replies
I think motors in all modes go only up to like 85% of throttle by default. I think there is a parameter for it somewhere.
You don't want the copter to be able to go to 100% during flight or else you have no more power in case of wind sheer or any other time the flight controller needs to do a sudden change.
Attached the log from todays short flight which ending with a crash, i'm not sure what happened, it was very windy. The copter suddenly stopped to accept Roll moves, it was very windy and i was steering with Yaw and PItch to compensate the missing Roll. as such it flow very stable in the wind. Then i lost steering direction, meaning the copter not followed the expected direction of Pilot inputs and flow his own way and crashed badly. Plates and Arms broken. Funny thing, as i attached the broken Copter with arms hanging around and broken frame to the USB port, the copter just done the new Tone saying ready.
@Randy
could you find out something ?
@Leonard
The PID's basically feel ok but the YAW ATC acceleration are somewhat of misplaced. Autotune set it to 18000 this was a no go, manually i set it to 90000 which was better. You can it compare saying AC3.2.1 feels like the "Porsche -> Agile and AC3.3 like American Muscle Car Stright it's going like hell.
2015-04-18 16-48-01.log
How do I setup the aux channel for the retractable landing gear?
There are still just 27 entrys in RCX_FUNCTION - Parameter.
I have just registered to say this - THANK YOU!
I have spent last week tearing down my quad to the level of engine bearings there and back in order to remove the problem with unstable alth-hold. I have suspected vibration as a cause. With 3.2.1 the copter would sometimes rise ~20 meters.
My vibrations on the x/y axis are within specs (+2/-2) while the z vibrations are barely within specs (but still within).
Yesterday I have installed the 3.3 rc-1 and the quad flies MUCH better. I have tested alt hold, loiter, mission, rtl, failsafe and all works perfectly (test1).
I have tested again today and it was a bit less perfect, there were some minor issues with alt hold performance (test2).
The difference is the weather conditions. While test1 was performed at perfectly calm air, today it was windy (25-30kph in gusts).
In my opinion vibration spikes in z axis i get are a result, not a cause of an over-aggresive engine reaction. I can see the quad wobbling a bit during gusts.
Question - Is it possible that the attitude stabilisation is over-aggresive when compensating for wind gusts which casuses z axis spikes which influence baro? Can I compensate with PIDs? I use PID values obtained from autotune in 3.2.1. Moreover, the copter in current configuration has a high power margin - hover at ~40% throttle.
Other observations:
- I have problems arming - I turn on the quad (connect XT60's), i get yellow flashes, red-blue flashes and again yellow flashes for a log time. I get "bad gyro health" in Tower application. In my opinion this is due to moving the quad when connecting the XT60 connector. If I connect in one smooth move - I get blue breathing than green breathing (GPS fix)
- Beeps when changing the flight mode are very usefull
http://firmware.diydrones.com/
Yes I understand the risks and built this quad for just such experimentation, however do not have a death wish for it. The Auto Tune portion of 3.2.1 had major issues on my Spy 750 Y6 and 3.3 rc1 still does as many report, and apparently can be modified somewhat. I don't mind going in and changing parameters, but if there is a beta version with modded AT code, I'd try it on the quad.
Although I managed to change the PID's good enough to get the big bird flyable for AT, It would be honest to say I'm not much into manual PID tuning.
Not being familiar with how the devs build the code ladder, is this version the same as 3.3 rc1 but with Auto Tune mods? http://firmware.diydrones.com/Copter/2015-04/2015-04-16-12:04/PX4-q...
Thanks.
Ah, by the way, -rc2 will be out by next weekend. That will include the autotune fixes and hopefully some of these items:
No rush just wondering.
Thanks for the great work.
@UAS_Pilot,
Rob's been working on that as well but we ran into some scope creep as we tried to make it work for plane and also solve the RCMAP-Min-Max issue and all that together made it too big an effort to fit into AC3.3. Some cut-down version of that will make it in but it's hard to say what bits it will cover.
DG,
If you want to try "latest" there's also a secret key combo in mission planner. So press Ctrl-Q and you should see a message "These are the latest trunk firmware, use at your own risk!!!". You may or may not see the release labels (i.e. "V3.3-rc1") change because we've only recently renamed trunk back to "-dev".
I definitely don't recommend using latest and we can't provide support for queries/crashes on this firmware.
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