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
Mike, what GPS do you use?
Thx
Was that for me? I have 2 on board; 3DR LEA-6H with compass and a New Ublox 8M
Log File C:/Program Files (x86)/Mission Planner/logs/HEXAROTOR/1/2015-05-17 11-38-30.log
Size (kb) 7422.033203125
No of lines 97858
Duration 0:06:13
Vehicletype APM:Copter
Firmware Version V3.3-rc4
Firmware Hash f4ad23b9
Hardware Type
Free Mem 0
Skipped Lines 0
Test: Autotune = NA -
Test: Balance/Twist = NA -
Test: Brownout = GOOD -
Test: Compass = GOOD - mag_field interference within limits (10.34%)
Test: Dupe Log Data = GOOD -
Test: Empty = GOOD -
Test: Event/Failsafe = GOOD -
Test: GPS = GOOD -
Test: IMU Mismatch = GOOD - (Mismatch: 0.38, WARN: 0.75, FAIL: 1.50)
Test: Parameters = GOOD -
Test: PM = NA -
Test: Pitch/Roll = NA -
Test: Thrust = NA -
Test: VCC = GOOD -
Cheers, Mike
Great job team!
Thank's
We've started on updating the docs. So far we have:
LOVE the Brake flight mode! That is an awesome implementation. Thanks guys!
Randy thanks for the vids...
Load 3.3.4 all is good. Alt Hold Check, Pos Hold Check, Fly into wind with no change in altitude Check, Pos Hold breaking Check, RTL mode returned to take off location and descended very quickly and then held at 10 meters. Slowly descended to just above the ground and then slowly touched the ground as if it could see the ground. Disarmed Check.
Review of the logs show good vibration levels.
One question is when taking off sometime in Stabilize mode I see Red Yellow flashing. What does this mean?
Michael,
That's an EKF check failure (search for Flashing red and yellow). I've seen that once as well and my guess is it comes from taking off before the EKF's position is fully settled. We don't need it's position while in stabilize so it doesn't cause any real problems so perhaps we should look into that more and perhaps remove the flashing lights.
So as some have noticed, AC3.3-rc4 is now available through the mission planner's beta firmware link. Changes are in the ReleaseNotes and also listed below.
The accelerometer "whiskers" are fixed in this release. Looks like we missed that in the release notes so we will add that.
Changes from 3.3-rc3
1) AutoTune:
a) save roll, pitch, yaw rate acceleration limits along with gains
b) more conservative gains
2) Roll, pitch rate control feed-forward now on by default (set ATC_RATE_FF_ENAB to "0" to disable)
3) Serial ports increased to maximum of 4 (set SERIALX_PROTOCOL to 1)
4) MOT_THR_MIX_MIN param to control minimum throttle vs attitude during landing (higher = more attitude control but bumpier landing)
5) EKF fixes/improvements
a) prevent yaw errors during fast spins
b) bug fix preventing external selection of optical flow mode
6) Parachute:
a) servo/relay held open for 2sec when deploying (was 1sec)
b) fix altitude check to be alt-above-home (was alt-above ekf origin which could be slightly different)
7) TradHeli:
a) parameters moved to stop possibility of corruption if board is switched between tradheli and multicopter firmware. Heli users may need to re-setup some heli-specific params.
b) H_COLYAW param can be float
8) Small Improvements / Bug Fixes:
a) reduced spline overshoot after very long track followed by very short track
b) log entire mission to dataflash whenver it's uploaded
c) altitude reported if vehicle takes off before GPS lock
d) high speed logging of IMU
e) STOP flight mode renamed to BRAKE and aux switch option added
There will be an -rc5 later this week to at least correct the RCMAP issue. Not too many other fixes will make it in. I'll have a look at some of the remaining issues including 1713 and sort them out if they're really easy but can't make any promises.
How safe is autotune now? I have been holding off trying this due to problems others have seen, but would like to see if it corrects the slight wobble I see with 3.3 with 3.2.1 PIDs.
Incidentally I have been flying with 3.3rc3+ for a while now and it's great! RTL is very precise, I haven't experienced any of the MAG issues in auto that I've seen with 3.2.1. EKF seems to be more resilient to failure than DCM now. So all in all very encouraging!
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