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 have zero clipping on my 3DR X4. Any clipping is bad IMO, I don't think you can ignore it as it means that the sensors are essentially lying to the EKF.
Andrea,
Thanks for testing!
So what happened is the battery failsafe triggered a GPS-controlled-LAND but it was able to to control it's velocity probably because of a bad heading. It looks like compassmot has been run on the vehicle but it's throttle based instead of current based. The throttle-based compassmot is not very reliable because the interference is really related to current and throttle's relationship to current is not linear. I've actually been considering removing the throttle-based compassmot.
The MAG messages are not present in the log which means I cannot directly check the interference level. If you could set the LOG_BITMASK to "NearlyAll" that would be good for future analysis.
By the way, as a minor point, I wouldn't personally call this a "flyaway". I think a "flyaway" is when the vehicle flies off out-of-control and out of the pilot's view. In this case the vehicle was indeed out of control for a short-time but through some good piloting skills you re-took control before it got even 10m away.
Hi Randy. I always follow your posts and I have noticed that the idea of removing throttle-based compassmot has been with you for quite some time. I think you should go ahead and eliminate it. I have always used only two options: either I just fly without calibration or make a good current sensor calibration and then run compassmot.
Throttle based compassmot is just a problem wainting to happen specially since novice users think is might be as good as the other option but with less work.
Just my two cents!
Keep up with the good work
Yeah, I think you're right. I'm going to zap it.
Randy, please don't remove the "throttle based" in the compassmot section, thanks.
I use this function with all my VRBrain without issue (and without current sensor), i really need this option... ;-)
If the user is not expert and he has not correctly calibrated the current sensor must simply not use the compassmot.
I believe a "warning" in the Planner is sufficient for this.
Marco,
The ship has pretty much sailed on AC3.3 so we're talking about removing it for AC3.4 so luckily we don't need to decide immediately. Still, how about we work towards trying to get a current sensor working on your vehicle? That could even involve using UAVCAN ESCs because they should be ready by the time AC3.4 is ready and should provide ESC level current monitoring.
Hi all,
when is the LED flashing fast in green? Is it related to the GPS state?
TIA and best regards,
Thorsten
I vaguely remember someone saying it was related to SBAS. A good thing I think.
Hi Randy. Couple of days ago I was flying a Octaquad with a pixhawk(AC 3.2.1 firmware, EKF off). I know it's a topic on AC3.3 beta testing but this is really a strange situation that I need your help. The copter suddenly became out of control and flew away. Thankfully I got it back anyway, without much loss. I want you to help me look into the logs and figure out the problem :)
The dataflash log looks so strange‘covered’by errors. Obviously the flyaway wasn't caused by the loss of radio signal but something else. I and my frineds have notiecd after the errors occurr it shows two strange aspects:
1. Attitude logged in the two items, AHR2 and ATT shows great mismatch. And I think the attitude in AHR2 is right, based on the slant and revolving video record taken on board.
2. All GPS-based modes seem‘blocked’. GPS errs keep showing up while items of GPS shows nothing abnormal. Yaw in ATT remains the same for a period while data of mag changing. One of my frineds thought the flight control system left out the data of compass for some reason.
The other day one friend also crashed unexpectedly. His copter was in loiter mode when it started to circle, and eventually crashed because of wobble. I looked into his log and it also showed great mismatch on YAW in AHR2 and ATT.
What do you think caused this? Is that a hardware failure? vibration? or bug in attitude calculating? Should I keep EKF on to avoid this issue?
My dataflash log and his are attached here.
Mine.BIN
John,
As you say, this is the AC3.3 testing thread but I'll respond here in any case. Probably best to start a new discussion and send me a link if we discuss this flight further.
It's very clear the heading goes bad (see ATT's ErrYaw field which goes to 1.0 which means it's lost it's heading estimate) which must be caused by either a bad gyro bias estimate (i.e. gyro calibration) or bad compass. I think it's the gyro calibration just before take-off.
The heading begins to go bad as early as 1.5min into the flight but it gets very bad just past 3 minutes. This leads to all the EKF check errors and failure to enter Loiter. The only way to recover the vehicle in these cases is to switch to Stabilize or AltHold.
Sorry I don't have a really good answer on this one yet. I'll ask Tridge and perhaps Paul Riseborough to have a look to see if they more clearly see the cause.
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