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
Thanks Leonard! Got it.
I've done that and now it looks awesome. Many thanks
I'm getting Bad AHRS when powering up my Pixhawk. This only happens when I first power the unit up so I think something is going bad. And yes I did short out the power leads to the copter and this makes no difference.
The problem is I don't know what is going bad since it only happens for a short time before correcting itself which causes the error. The unit doesn't correct itself except by unplugging it and plugging it back in. Is there a way to determine what Bad AHRS is?
I'm getting that on 3 different hawks right now :( 2 lites and 1 full.
I would agree with you except I have two Pixhawk units one does it everytime the other never does it.
I think those are ****hawks and not a 3DR Pixhawk, correct? It seems that *hawk manufacturers do not know how to properly power down LS303D or they are using a cloned one with slightly diffferent specs with the original pixhawk schematics. I suggest when you short the power input, short it for full 4-5 seconds as the goal is to discharge capacitors behind all the voltage regulators and unlike ESC caps those do not fully discharge with a momentary short.
Unplug, short and replug. Some times it takes a couple tries to get the error to clear.
I have wondered if I was a timing issue, to many checks running at one time or the system coming on line before the checks are complete.
I have thought this issue could be embarrassing if I was doing a demo for client or when getting air born was very time sensitive, say in a life guard senerio attempting to fly a floatation device to drowning victim.
Fast start up has not been a strong point on any GPS utilizing FC brands I have worked with.
I have hope that eventually it will get sorted out.
@ Michael B, I only ran into this when I first started running EKF. It was explained that there is a lag with EKF starts running. Therefore the momentary "Bad AHRS" which clears itself. If it doesn't clear that is another matter (I've never experienced that).
This should not to be confused with the "Bad Gyro Health" problem requiring the shoring of the pins protocol.
TO ALL DUAL GPS USERS!!!
Hi, for those who followed this thread it was discussed multiple times about vehicle been unstable if we have 2 GPS onboard.
I followed Randy`s suggestion (sorry if it was somebody else`s, but it is not an important part :) ) and I adjusted parameter for both GPS units to use only GPS system satellites, namely GPS_GNSS_MODE parameter was altered from 0 into 1.
It has resulted with significantly shorter list of visible satellites, I have 2 M8N units on board, so it has dropped from 19-21 sats down to 11-12 on second GPS and 13-16 on bigger GPS unit and HDOP is stabilized around 0.85. It picks them up same quick as before, that did not change.
Early morning field test had both GPS units on 11 sats with no position jumping at all, test on front lawn shows 9 sats firm on smaller GPS and mostly 15 on bigger one getting sometimes to 16 or dropping to 14. Still, a stability of pos hold was close to perfect compared to what it was before.
So for now it is how I will keep it. Test on my front lawn also proved it to be working way better - this non-stop wandering around has stopped, vehicle seems to sit in one place in pos hold like it is supposed to be.
The parameter description issue is a problem with MP so I've raised an issue for MichaelO here.
Until that's fixed, the correct GPS_GNSS_MODE parameter descriptions are here. The @Values show numbers that can be put directly added and put into the parameter. If you're ok at bit math then the @Bitmask description shows the meaning of each bit in the number. Eventually MP will be fixed and we can all just use checkboxes again.
So I recommended "3" because this enables the "GPS" satellites (i.e. the US Govt satellites) and "SBAS". All other systems like the EU Galileo, the Russian GLONASS, etc are disabled. This is why there are fewer satellites seen but my understanding is that the GPS constellation is the most reliable and sometimes using glonass can actually reduce the accuracy of the solution.
Enabling "SBAS" can also be bad though depending upon where you are in the world. in the US and Japan it's definitely better to have it, in Australia though it can make it worse.
Hope this helps.
I´m flying pretty often @ my shaded backyard as well ,-)
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