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!

RC11 flies very well. I had frequent EKF issues, all resolved now. Thank you!

I have not seen any info regarding DO_MOUNT_CONTROL other than mentioning it in the wiki. I have wanted to use this for some time now, so I thought I would post a video showing my results. I did not spend a lot of time planning the mission and its not the greatest video, but maybe it will help someone. I am flying a stock IRIS+ with a tarot 2d gimbal, so pitch will be the only variable. In mission planner my gimbal is restricted to move between 0 deg and -90 deg. If using a different gimbal, check the gimbal set up page to know the limits for this command. I initially tried a pitch setting of 20, and since that was out of the range of 0 to -90, nothing happened. When I figured out pitching down should be a negative number, it worked great. At the first waypoint the camera goes to -20 deg, followed by -25, -30, -35, and -40. I included the waypoint file is case anyone wanted details.

https://youtu.be/bnjXxMpqgKI?t=43s

I'll be using -30. Here's a large road project near me. This video ends showing a transition from DO_MOUNT command to ROI and back to DO_MOUNT.

https://youtu.be/SVp7MN3sTg4

mount test.txt

Replies

- Developer
  
  leonardthall > Shaun Bell September 22, 2015 at 9:33pm
  
  Hi Shaun,
  
  This is because autotune sets them to be equal. This is based on the time constant the average pilot expects to see.
  - Shaun Bell > leonardthall September 22, 2015 at 10:54pm
    
    Am I the only one that didn't know that?
    - Fnoop > Shaun Bell September 23, 2015 at 12:50am
      
      No ;)
    - Developer
      
      leonardthall > Shaun Bell September 22, 2015 at 10:59pm
      
      Yes ;)
Chris N September 22, 2015 at 2:09pm

RC11 flies very well. I had frequent EKF issues, all resolved now. Thank you!

I have not seen any info regarding DO_MOUNT_CONTROL other than mentioning it in the wiki. I have wanted to use this for some time now, so I thought I would post a video showing my results. I did not spend a lot of time planning the mission and its not the greatest video, but maybe it will help someone. I am flying a stock IRIS+ with a tarot 2d gimbal, so pitch will be the only variable. In mission planner my gimbal is restricted to move between 0 deg and -90 deg. If using a different gimbal, check the gimbal set up page to know the limits for this command. I initially tried a pitch setting of 20, and since that was out of the range of 0 to -90, nothing happened. When I figured out pitching down should be a negative number, it worked great. At the first waypoint the camera goes to -20 deg, followed by -25, -30, -35, and -40. I included the waypoint file is case anyone wanted details.

https://youtu.be/bnjXxMpqgKI?t=43s

I'll be using -30. Here's a large road project near me. This video ends showing a transition from DO_MOUNT command to ROI and back to DO_MOUNT.

https://youtu.be/SVp7MN3sTg4

mount test.txt
- Developer
  
  Randy > Chris N September 22, 2015 at 11:44pm
  
  Thanks for testing, nice video!
  - Chris N > Randy September 23, 2015 at 6:39am
    
    Thanks for developing!
Developer

Randy September 22, 2015 at 12:54am

Copter-3.3-rc12 is now available through the Mission Planner's beta firmwares link.

Desperately hoping that this is the final release candidate. We received some complaints from others on the dev team that they were seeing a "Compass Variance" pre-arm failure which they could never get rid of without power-cycling the board so -rc12 has a change just for this one issue.

If all goes well we will do the "soft release" of Copter-3.3 no later than next Tuesday.
Gregmaan September 21, 2015 at 6:42am

Today I had a bad crash with RC11:

I was flying smothly near to the ground. Suddenly the copter went wild going fast forward then left backwards. My control inputs did not respond to the Copter. So I shut down throttle, setting it with the camera on the ground. The objective of the camera is now destroyed, and some scratches on the display. I did not know what happens. Maybe someone could assist?

https://www.dropbox.com/sh/dnarxid3xychq1u/AADKFswaADCzTSE_uCl6Eupq...

(2015-09-21 14-54-28_crash.bin)

Gregor

Dropbox - Link not found

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
  Randy > Gregmaan September 22, 2015 at 5:13am
  Gregmann,Ok, thanks for the log and sorry for your crash. As Leonard says this one is a GPS glitch - the logic for that is now in the EKF so PaulR also helped with the analysis of the log. Some of the bits we discovered:
  
  the GPS update rate dropped from 5hz to 2.5hz 19 seconds before everything started to really go wrong so there was some early indication that the GPS was having troubles. It's unclear why the GPS update rate slowed, it could be a GPS power problem, I'm not really sure.
  
  the GPS suddenly lost lock completely for 6.4 seconds which is unusual. We'd expect it to jump around or report bad positions but to suddenly lose lock is a bit odd. I will ask Michael DuBreil (our GPS expert) to look into this. I worry that the GPS driver may have actually caused the loss-of-lock as it tried to speed up the GPS again. That's completely a guess but something we will look into. Another possibility is that whatever caused the GPS to slow, also caused it to lose lock.
  
  The EKF handled the loss of lock fine, it was when the GPS recovered that everything went bad. There are some things we can do to improve this:
  
  EKF will tell the position controllers (i.e. Loiter) that it's glitched so the Loiter controller will reset it's position all at once. This may have avoided some of the vehicle leans you saw as the Loiter controller tried to move back to where it was before the glitch.
  
  add a GPS Glitch failsafe. We need to discuss what the response to a glitch should be but Solo guys have chosen to switch the vehicle into AltHold mode until the Glitch has cleared. We might support multiple responses like we do with other failsafe.

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