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
Randy, please check in the code what logic is used to generate message 'prearm needs 3D fix'.
I see this message for very long time now, when GEOFENCE is activated. if it is not activated it seems to respect value for a HDOP given in the gps paramters and arm, but with geofence it seems to wait for something else.
Paul,
It's probably that EKF has not declared it's position is ok. When the circular fence is activated the position estimate from the EKF must be good before the pre-arm checks will pass.
The EKF does a bunch of checks internally including ensuring the velocity is ok. Maybe those checks are too tight or maybe there's really some issue with the GPS velocity numbers or something else. If you turn on logging-while-disarmed we can ask Paul to have a look.
Maybe we can add some extra information to the check to clarify exactly what is going bad.
OK, I will try.
It is an interesting comment about EKF getting hooked into GPS that tight. I can see that when bigger GPS units hooks into at least 13-14 sats it is satisfied, but, it is M8N unit that does it, I know for a fact that none of my older neo6 units ever hook up to that many sats, so, I wonder how all other folks are managing with that.
I struggled with that yesterday as I got bigger GPS unit removed and had to tinker a lot to make small GPS work again, got it to the level of getting 9 sats connected to, HDOP reported as low as 1.1 - 1.3 something - but I could not get drone to arm a single time as it was constantly demanding for this '3D fix'.
I am not sure if I want to take it apart again, but, it is something that was not really expected.
Hello all,
I'm hoping someone can offer some input. Ive been flying 3.2.1 since its release and I saw that 3.3 was released, so wanted to give it a try. (3.3rc7) 1300 sized quad running 6S, T-motor 4014-11 330Kv with and all up flight weight of 6200g. I tried Stab, Alt Hold, and Pos Hold. The quad seemed much more responsive and generally smoother flying even with the default PIDs.
I was flying in Pos Hold and all was well until about minute 9 where the quad started to uncontrollably descend and yaw counter clockwise. I tried to feed it counter yaw and boosted the throttle to attempt to keep some altitude. Nothing worked and it crashed, fairly gently however. No real damage just a significant twist to the gimbal as the gear was still descending and didn't make it. I've looked at the logs and Yaw seems to be leading DesYaw but not drastically. The clockwise motors were hot to the touch as would be expected from chasing the yaw for 9 minutes.
I'm not experienced with logs and was hoping for some input.
I can't attach the log as its too large so heres a link:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1CbIAUo7keqblZuRXdPS0NJc0U/view?u...
Thanks!
Hi all,
a question (most probably OT):
I installed a new GPS/Compass module on a Pixhawk copter. After a warning that the Compass Offsets were too high I changed the external compass and made a new calibration. What changed were the offset values not the offset2 values. Same as if I approach the external compass with a screw the mx, my, mz change - not the mx2, my2, mz2 values. I thought (and the wiki says so) that the external compass is compass2.
Had there been some change in the code recently?
Thanks and best regards,
Thorsten
Thorsten,
That seems ok, the external compass will appear as compass 0 and the internal compass will be bumped to be compass 1. I had a quick look for the wiki page that has this wrong but I couldn't immediately find it. Do you have a link to the offending wiki page?
Randy,
thanks for clarification!
Well, it is not stated directly but at 26.13 Compass is attached via an external cable (COMPASS_EXTERNAL) the following entries are about Compass2.
Cheers,
Thorsten
Randy,
this thread grows big, I know there was a response from you about a possible patch to make drone maintain an altitude at max speed in the position hold.
I did not see it in the release notes, I just tested this issue again and it is same as it was in the RC7, drone drops altitude at max horizontal speed. One new thing is that I saw a couple of times a message on the MP screen saying 'error velocity variance' - I never saw it before in RC7. it seemed to pop up when I gave max throttle and then max forward input and then reduced forward input a bit to make drone go forward gaining elevation - it seemed to go fine but popped up this message on the MP screen. Not sure why. it should be in 3.bin log file below.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/z3zr27tldc2e1t2/3.BIN?dl=0
Hi Paul,
Yes, I haven't included it in -rc8 but I will still prepare a patch on -rc8 in the next couple of days so you can give it a try and provide some feedback. Based on that we can see if it's good enough or whether we need to go back and look for a different solution.
FYI- I too saw the 'error velocity variance' for the first time while flying in rc7 and was wondering what it meant. I think I was in Stabilize or Loiter when I gave full forward and right for a few seconds to reposition quad. All was OK, just noticed this error on playback of flight, and I don't remember seeing it before as well. Flight was fine including a mission and RTL. Was going to see if I can repeat error today.
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