Copter-3.3 beta testing

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!

My initial results for 3.3rc4 - Tarot650 frame, pixhawk, ublox m8n, 700kv sunnysky motors with 12x55 CF props

Autotune is much better than 3.2, but still not ready to replace a good manual PID tuning. Yaw tuning is also usable. But I had to do the tune several times as the tuner could not tune the Roll PIDs i.e. pitch P was set to around 0.15 where roll P was left at 0.05, I noticed others also had this issue. Other values were also around 1/3rd of the pitch. Had to manually copy the pitch params to rolls to be able to fly again. Same issue for stabilize P params.
Lat-Long P and Loiter PID's and Altitude P are removed, always wondered if we really needed these anyway. I'm guessing the code now always sticks to the standard roll-pitch PIDs for loiter. With feed forward also enabled and WPNAV_LOIT_MINA tuned along with manual PIDs, I had the best loiter performance ever.
Spot on RTL. Re-armed and tested 20+ times, always landed with 10-15cm proximity. Much softer landing and quick disarm after touchdown.
Much better attitude control, only 30-40cm change while flying only at 5 meters with 40kH+ wind.
Had the gyro message several times as eveyone else, waiting for rc5 on this
I'm having a really hard time with the Stabilize mode now, since the THR_MID param was also removed from what I saw and have no idea how to set my mid position. I can hardly land (bounces, still got too much power at min throttle) and switching between stabilize and loiter becomes a pain. Any ideas on this?

Keep up the great work, it's getting even better every day

Replies

- - - - Gregmaan > leonardthall May 23, 2015 at 11:22am
        
        I attach a link to my dropbox:
        
        https://www.dropbox.com/sh/dnarxid3xychq1u/AADKFswaADCzTSE_uCl6Eupq...
        
        Thanks for going into this.
        
        Gregor
        
        Dropbox - Link not found
        
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        Developer
        
        leonardthall > Gregmaan May 23, 2015 at 10:00pm
        
        Hi Gregmaan,
        
        I would encourage you to set these parameters
        
        MOT_THST_BAT_MAX,25.2
        MOT_THST_BAT_MIN,21
        MOT_THST_EXPO,0.8
        MOT_THST_MAX,0.95
        
        These are the parameters that linearise the lift of your props and ensure your tune stays right as your battery goes flat and as you increase and decrease your throttle.
        
        I will need more logs of your autotune on roll and pitch before I can help you further. I can tell you that you don't expect your roll and pitch pids to be the same on a hex though.
        
        Gregmaan > leonardthall May 24, 2015 at 6:08am
        
        Hi Leonhardt,
        
        I made some autotunes with your recommendations. With ATune 0.1 now I got an instabillity on roll and the same hard vibs from the motors espacially 5 and 6. Then I did it with Atune 0,8. I had still vibrations but only in stabilize. Then I reduced all values to a value there I got only small vibs on the motors. Sorry but your recommendations did not work for me.
        
        I attached the new logs on Dropbox:
        
        https://www.dropbox.com/sh/dnarxid3xychq1u/AADKFswaADCzTSE_uCl6Eupq...
        
        Further help would be fine ;-)
        
        Cheers
        
        Gregor
        
        Dropbox - Link not found
        
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        Developer
        
        leonardthall > Gregmaan May 25, 2015 at 2:12am
        
        Hi Gregmaan,
        
        That is very strange. That autotune did not work well. Your step responses during autotune are not what I am used to seeing.
        
        You can drop the aggressiveness down to 0.05 and try again but the next step is to remove the gimbal.
        
        Gregmaan > leonardthall May 26, 2015 at 6:35am
        
        Maybe you are interested in other logs:
        
        Tarot T680Pro with 4010 340KV motors on 6S and 13 inch Props
        
        Autotune_aggr 0,07. Much to sensitive, overall vibs
        
        Autotune_aggr 0,05.Looks nearly good, but needs manual tuning.
        
        The corresponding Yaw with 0,1 looks perfect !
        
        I put some additional logs into the dropbox folder ...
        
        Now I tested 3.3 Autotune with 3 Copters and would day there sould be some more steps avaliable to adopt the basics to do a good autotune.
        
        In my personal case (T960) I am still tinking of an parameter which adopts the rpm lag to the pixhawk before doing autotune.
        
        With autotune 0,06 on T960 there is still a bigger differnce between roll and pitch.
        
        Cheers Gregor
        
        Gregmaan > leonardthall May 25, 2015 at 10:36am
        
        Hi Leonhardt, thanks for this information. I think in my case its the ESC Motor combination. I did an autotune with aggr 0.06 on roll/pitch an it looks not bad without much wind. May I ask you what parameters are responsible to tell the FC how fast the props can react on throttle changes. Maybe I should set this values to the upper/lower limit. My pankakes react a litle bit slower than in "normal" setups i think.
        
        Thanks a lot,
        
        Gregor
        
        Developer
        
        leonardthall > leonardthall May 25, 2015 at 5:03am
        
        Hi Gregmaan,
        
        I have a 5 kg to 10 kg 960 that tuned on Autotune and will fly perfectly well with all up weight of 5 kg to 10kg.
        
        I also have an 850 Quad that also tuned well.
        
        I think the only thing that might be different since I tuned them is the Stab P may be higher.
        
        I will go over them again this weekend and get back to you.
        
        You will have to ask Marco about his copter.
        
        I would also suggest you set the Autotune_aggr to 0.05. Looking at your logs though, this would not have helped.
        
        Your s900 does not appear to be an autotune log.
        
        Gregmaan > leonardthall May 25, 2015 at 3:10am
        
        Hi Leonhardt,
        
        Ok, I will remove the gimbal and do it again with aggressiveness of 0,07 in the first step.
        
        Today I did another autotune with a DJI S900 of a friend with the same strange behavior. I also put this into the Dropbox.
        
        Are you really sure that autotune is useable for large Hexas?
        
        Maybe you can talk to Marco R. who published a video of a perfect flying S900.
        
        Do you know if he gets his perfecly flying Copter by using autotune?
        
        Cheers
        
        Gregor
        
        PS: Maybe it is possible to get the params from Marco, for basic settings on S900
Gökhan Topçu May 22, 2015 at 6:40am
My initial results for 3.3rc4 - Tarot650 frame, pixhawk, ublox m8n, 700kv sunnysky motors with 12x55 CF props
- Autotune is much better than 3.2, but still not ready to replace a good manual PID tuning. Yaw tuning is also usable. But I had to do the tune several times as the tuner could not tune the Roll PIDs i.e. pitch P was set to around 0.15 where roll P was left at 0.05, I noticed others also had this issue. Other values were also around 1/3rd of the pitch. Had to manually copy the pitch params to rolls to be able to fly again. Same issue for stabilize P params.
- Lat-Long P and Loiter PID's and Altitude P are removed, always wondered if we really needed these anyway. I'm guessing the code now always sticks to the standard roll-pitch PIDs for loiter. With feed forward also enabled and WPNAV_LOIT_MINA tuned along with manual PIDs, I had the best loiter performance ever.
- Spot on RTL. Re-armed and tested 20+ times, always landed with 10-15cm proximity. Much softer landing and quick disarm after touchdown.
- Much better attitude control, only 30-40cm change while flying only at 5 meters with 40kH+ wind.
- Had the gyro message several times as eveyone else, waiting for rc5 on this
- I'm having a really hard time with the Stabilize mode now, since the THR_MID param was also removed from what I saw and have no idea how to set my mid position. I can hardly land (bounces, still got too much power at min throttle) and switching between stabilize and loiter becomes a pain. Any ideas on this?
Keep up the great work, it's getting even better every day
- Developer
  
  Craig Elder > Gökhan Topçu May 22, 2015 at 9:29am
  
  Can you please post a log file and some graphs showing your analysis where you think the auto tune needs to be improvemented and exactly where your manual tune is creating better response from the vehicle.
  
  Thanks

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