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

      • @Edwin Janssen: It is true that you can do multiple axis at a time but only if your battery is able to last the time required for multiple axis. On medium or large multi rotors it is not obvious.

        Henri

  • Hello Dev-Team,

    Here a log from my last Autotune with aggr 0.05.

    I tuned only the roll-axis

    The result from the autotune is not good. The copter is oscillating.

    Dropbox - Error
    Dropbox is a free service that lets you bring your photos, docs, and videos anywhere and share them easily. Never email yourself a file again!
    • Developer

      Hi Andre,

      The problem is you had your aggr set to 5 not 0.05. This means you were working with 0.2.

      let me know how you go with the correct setting.

      Sorry for the late reply!!!!!!

    • I autotuned my s900 the other day with aggr 0.05, and it still oscillated and needed to be manually detuned about 20% before it would fly without shaking. Can the autotune aggr be set below 0.05?

      • Just reran the autotune with RC8, and it looks to have given me a good set of PIDs on the s900 with aggr 0.05. It looked pretty hairy when the yaw tune started, gave big wobbles on roll, but sorted itself out by the end. Will try on the T960 shortly too.

      • Thanks for looking into it Leonard. Without a gimbal attached I'm sure the autotuned values from 0.05 would be appropriate, but with the gimbal attached, my big copters (6kg t960 and 7kg s900) always seem to need a manual reduction in the PIDs after autotune to stop shaking. I'll give them a retune with rc8 and see if there's any difference from the tune I got out of rc7.

      • Developer

        Hi Glenn,

        Currently you can actually set the aggr from 0.05 to 0.2 but I don't encourage going outside the 0.05 to 0.1 range. I could drop the hard minimum to 0.02 so people can experiment. It is hard because I test this on 8 different copters from 600g to 10kg and don't need to go outside of that range.

        I am concerned that someone might make it very small by accident and get a very sluggish tune....

        I will think on it.

      • Range is from 0.05 to 0.10: http://copter.ardupilot.com/wiki/configuration/arducopter-parameter...

  • Had a scary moment after landing in PosHold, throttle down and instead of shifting to stabilize mode to disarm I shifted to auto mode again. Had the throttle down and left to disarm but the quad throttled up and did a circle on the ground. I thought it was going to flip over but luckily it didn't. 

    log

    2015-07-18 21-42-37.bin
    • Developer

      Arni,

      Yes, that's how it would act because "auto armed" (which is used to control whether the mission starts or not) only becomes false when the vehicle is disarmed or the throttle is put to zero in stabilize or acro.  This logic hasn't changed from AC3.2.1 but we could modify it so that it becomes false even in PosHold, Loiter, AltHold when the vehicle is landed.

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