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
Thank's Chris, shure it's time to update harware; we have to give many thank's that we have a high mature code to still enjoy flying with our old APM, mine is only a minor issue but I begin with this only for work (crop monitoring) and now it's a hobby too so follow updates and find issues is part of it :) .
First rc1 flight behind and quad still in one piece. No errors in the log. I'm seeing quite a lot altitude surfing which is visible in log too. Also baro and gps altitudes are not in par. Barometer seems to show higher alt than it actually was. I did autotune in around 4 meters and raised during it meter or two because of surfing. Baro shows 8 meters :|.
Tested autotune, result wasn't best possible. Quad is barely flyable and has quite strong wobble if sharp commands are given. Earlier version did rock solid settings.
PIDs, earlier and now:
stab 8.5, 6.2
RLL
P 0.26, 0.13
I 0.26, 0.32
D 0.018, 0.002
IMAX 500, 50
PIT
P 0.35, 0.08
I 0.35, 0.21
D 0.02, 0.002
IMAX 500, 50
New yaw values seemed to work fine.
http://www.droneshare.com/mission/83882
Hi Kuisma,
Definitely a bad tune there and I already have some changes for the next release candidate. I will check over your logs and get back to you. I would switch back to the old parameters.
I can't seem to access your log file. If you could make it available that would be great!!
Hi, on friday 26.6. I updated from RC 5 to RC 6.
I changed only the values P Pitch from 13.700000 after Autotune to P 9.740000 (the same value from Roll)
The Hexacopter has FC Pixhawk 3DR, DJI motors 2312 with esc 420 S and lipo 4S 5000 mAh, time of flight was 12 minutes - without any problems !!!!!!
Flight modes: Stabilized, AltHold, Loiter, PosHold, Circle, Land, RTL
enclosed you find the logs
2015-06-27 16-10-06.zip
report was doubled
Changed droneshare settings. Maybe now? I did change back. Btw, why p limit in mp is 0.2? 0.35 on mine seems to be ok..?
Hi Kuisma,
Rate D is limited at the lower end to 0.002.
I think I see the problem.... maybe.... It looks like the release went out with AUTOTUNE_AGGR set to 0.05. This tends to be a little sensitive, the default should be 0.1.
Thanks!!!
Thanks for the tip. I changed aggr to 0.1 and did another autotune. Now pitch seems ok, but roll is still quite bad. Lot's of wobble and quite sluggish. Yaw feels quite aggressive but it works. Oh, when in stab mode and doing yaw, copter gained quite a lot altitude. This didn't happen in althold mode.
new results:
stab roll & pitch: 6.25, 10.95
rate roll
0.08
0.21
0.002
500
rate pitch
0.26
0.63
0.012
500
yaw
0.65
0.065
0
100
Strangely lot difference in roll and pitch?
log: http://www.droneshare.com/mission/84513
pic of the quad: http://imgur.com/USASeBr
It's 700mm.
Hi Kuisma,
Yeh, roll is still messed up. The good news is your problem is specifically what the latest changes to autotune are designed to fix. (Rate noise during the test)
To dampen down your Yaw control I would suggest turning on feed forward and using your acceleration parameters. A good starting point is:
ATC_ACCEL_P_MAX,110000
ATC_ACCEL_R_MAX,110000
ATC_ACCEL_Y_MAX,36000
ATC_RATE_FF_ENAB,1
If the FF is set to 1 then Autotune will set them at the maximum your copter can handle.
Forgot to set those parameters, but tested autotune today with latest firmware. Now it seems to be working ok. Though I think controls are quite a lot softer than with earlier (3.2 or 3.1.5, don't remember which I used to tune it earlier) autotune version.
this time I got
Roll
9.2
0.20.49
0.009
Pitch
6.5
0.24
0.6
0.012
Yaw
4.3
0.57
0.057
0
log: http://www.droneshare.com/mission/85358
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