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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        • Opening Mission planner a pop up box informed me that there is beta update available.

          I updated and presto! I can up the rate PID's to .300 now!

          Thank you to the responsible party!
      • Full parameter list doesn't seem to allow changing alt hold p value...  And in extended tuning it's maxed at 1.0.

  • I notice some recent chatter in this thread about Tricopters, so are people testing it?  I've had no feedback about my changes in this dedicated thread:

    http://diydrones.com/forum/topics/ac3-3-tricopter-improvements-need...

    • Yes Rob, I most definitely am. Before I made some Rate Yaw changes suggested by Randy I was experiencing a persistent wandering yaw even in Stabilize.

      Here are the changes I made per his suggestion:

      Rate Yaw P: 0.2 -> 0.3

      Rate Yaw I: 0.02 -> 0.04

      Rate Yaw IMAX: 100 -> 200   (it's strange how MP seems to be scaling this value, the raw parameter RATE_YAW_IMAX should increased to 2000).

      I will read through your Tri thread. I had been checking the APM Forum but I will have to more carefully watch threads here as well. I am happy to test specific things or even try small code changes and run local builds if that would be helpful at all.

      Cheers,

      Patrick

  • Hey today we had a flight crash with the Navio version of AC3.3-rc8. We had come software panics with the compass and the ArduCopter-octa-quad not starting on bootup. It was spurious and sometimes the APM started.

    We did a first flight where everything went well. On the second flight, the one where we had the crash, we had a first sign that things were not good, when the aircraft suddenly changed attitude about 13 seconds before the event that resulted in the crash.

    The pilot tried to slowly bring it to the ground so as to land it safely, but the aircraft again changed attitude fast and started moving horizontally in a slightly oblique trajectory. The logs are not perfectly formated because the battery was ejected upon touch down, immediately turning off the Navio.

    In the logs we have not observed any unexpected compass swings in the last moments of the flight, but we did notice a significant divergence between RCIN and attitude. The mode we were in was Stabilize

    The first flight log is 23.BIN

    The crash flight log is 24.BIN

    I also keep a file which is a mavlink dump of the secondary telemetry, don't know if i really helps. ard.log

    We also recorded a bit of video. In the video you can see the slight attitude change around here:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=VwzYQ...

    And the moments before the crash the attitude change is:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=VwzYQ...

    • Developer

      Paulo,

      Great that you're testing the NAVIO board.

      There's some very bad performance numbers in the log.  It appears that twice during the flight, the main loop locked up for a stunning 0.18 and then 0.21 seconds.  The first one of these happens immediately before the twitch.

      3702587705?profile=originalSo now the question is why is the main loop locking up for so long?

      Are you using a binary from our build server or is it something you compiled youself?  Is there anything else running on the board?

    • The logs did not go and the edit did not allow to re upload them.

      23.BIN

      24.BIN

      ard_log

      https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3702586951?profile=original
  • I have a couple of questions.

    First, regarding the HDOP/PDOP error, does this mean that when running an older version (for example, 3.2.1 on APM), you can safely increase the GPS_HDOP_GOOD parameter by 40% for older versions of copter?

    And second, any hope of pitch/roll mixing for the gimbal controller to allow use with a super simple gimbal? 

    Thanks!

    • In 3.2.1 default was 2.30(230), now it is 1.40(140).

  • Hi all,

    I have some issue with my new X8 and I am not sure the problem arise from the code or my build. First of all, sorry about I am running AC3.2.1. In short, my X8 will flip over when braking at position hold mode(loiter sometimes). Luckily, the X8 can recover itself just after the flip, so it won't be a mechanical issue.  I noted that every time before the flip over, the output of motor 1 reach its minimum, not sure it is relevant or not. I wish someone can help to solve this problem. Thanks very much.

    Best Regards,

    Isaac

    2015-08-09 22-17-08 8.bin

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