Developer

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!

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Replies

    • Do you have a log? That'll tell you what the warning is.

      • I'm able to extract the log, but I get this when I try to load it in APM Planner to look at it:

        Error preparing inserttable: insert or replace into 'GRAW' (idx,"TimeMS","WkMS","Week","numSV","sv","cpMes","prMes","doMes","mesQI","cno","lli") values (?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?); Error is: table GRAW has no column named cpMes Unable to execute statement

        • If you get corrupted logs over mavlink then pop out the SD card and read directly onto your computer

          • I'm getting this as well... 

            Error preparing inserttable: insert or replace into 'GRAW' (idx,"TimeMS","WkMS","Week","numSV","sv","cpMes","prMes","doMes","mesQI","cno","lli") values (?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?,?); Error is: table GRAW has no column named cpMes Unable to execute statement

  • So if you're getting EKF variance messages you're pretty much done with 3.3 until it's fixed?  Reason I'm asking and I know it's beta, but the autotune works so well!  After autotune in 3.3, none of my big units have ever flown this well.  Before I didn't even bother with autotune and they were flying like crack addict squirrels lol!  But all the muti's are used for mapping.  If I'm half an hour into a scan and I get dropped out of Auto mode that would be lame.  I presume that's what going to happen with the EKF variance problem?  Can I autotune in 3.3 and copy to back to 3.21?  Or are the gains weighted differently.  Anyhow, great job on the autotune!

    • Developer

      Hi Shaun,

      Thanks, I am glad you are enjoying autotune!! rc6 is a little better still.

      The big difference between 3.2 and 3.3 is the yaw controller. I have added filtering in there to handle the physics of copters properly.

      I can't really answer your EKF question but you should be able to apply your roll and pitch autotune results to 3.2. There are a couple of changes that may make them a little less than perfect but I am not sure.

      • Hi Leonard! 

        I again tuned yaw on OCTA with the 18x6.5 props. Twice tuned, both times were these:
        1. aggr_tune =0.09: stab yaw= 5.209 , rate yaw p= 2.0, i= 0.2, d=0.0
        2. aggr_tune =0.07 stab yaw= 5.44, rate same pid.

        I low aggr tune and stab yaw is upper.

        When released rc6?

        • Developer

          Hi Aleksey,

          I am not sure what you are telling me with your tuning results. If you have a problem could you also provide a tuning log.

          RC6 should be out by the weekend.

  • I'm a latecomer to beta testing v3.3.

    I've had many successful flights with v3.2 but with v3.3rc5 I often cannot get it to arm. APM Planner says it needs a "3D Fix", yet I have 8 or more satellites and hdop of 1.6 - 1.9. I've even cranked up the HDOP threshold to 400 (i.e., 4.00)

    First thing this morning I did get it to arm (after quite some time) so I successfully did the autotune process. After landing I changed the battery and tried to do another flight but couldn't get it to arm. I've had "prearm chk mask" = 1 (everything) so I tried to exclude only the GPS check but APM Planner doesn't seem to let me upload a number greater than "127" (and unsigned char??).

    Could the "Need 3D Fix" message be generated by the failure of something else beside the GPS? I'm using a HKPilot32 (Pixhawk clone) with Ublox M8N gps on a F450 frame. 

    Can anyone shed some light on this?

    • Depending on your fpv transmitter frequency, 2.4 being the worst, it can generate a lot of noise and make aquiring sats difficult.

      I like 2.4 for video and ended up using channel 2505, trying different antennas and maximizing separation until the GPS stopped complaining.
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