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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  • Here is my latest 3.3rc9 log

    yes it is a tricopter and here is the bird: 

    yaw is better than with rc8, but still much worse than with 3.2.1 

    p.s. disregard clipping, this is due to unintentional touch-n-go-es :) 

    my only concern is that for some reason  all of my logs have "shifted" vibrations.... to be more precise vibrations are not under +/-3 with center at 0, but +/- 2 or less with a center at 1-2 for x/y 

    tri1.jpg

    tri2.jpg

    2015-08-21 14-06-51.bin
  • Had my first with RC9 this morning, was very stable in moderately windy conditions. Alt-Hold, Pos-Hold, Loiter worked very well. Landing gears were functional running it through the Pixhawk. Telemetry to the Taranis was an awesome addition. Total flight time with autotune was 25 minutes. Had switches setup for RTL and Land and those worked fine, I also had a switch for simple mode and that is a very nicely added bonus. Thank you for giving us the ability to use all the additional channels on the Taranis, I'm using 14 channels through S.Bus.

    Great work guys!

    https://youtu.be/ZSzgQAV6TGY

    • Did you have to set the serial 2  protocol to 3 as mentioned above in red? I'm still on 3.2 because I couldn't get my taranis script to run right on 3.3. Maybe it's fixed?? 

      • I set the protocol to 4 for S.Bus, 3 didn't work for me either so I went back to 4 and it worked great.
  • Well RC9 is really good at first sight.

    On a small 500 millimeters quad without even trying to adjust anything such as accel calibration or whatever from RC8 it is a dream!

    It just works the way it was supposed to! Beautiful! 


    Have a look at the attached very short flight vibes with all flying modes I'm using.

    Will load today RC9 on a much larger hexa and will give it a good test.

    Congrats to the dev team for such amazing release.

    Henri

    _3_3_RC9.JPG

  • Yesterday i installed RC9 and made the test again, that i made with my AUAV-X2 and -rc8:

    The Test was indoor, no flight, only power ON.

    LogWhenDisarmed = ENABLED

    Result with rc8:

    When powered over USB the log gives a 5 (00000101b) on Powr/Flags.
    When powered with battery the log gives a 7 (00000111b)on Powr/Flags.

    Result with rc9:

    When powered over USB the log gives a 5 (00000101b) on Powr/Flags.
    When powered with battery the log gives a 5 (00000101b) on Powr/Flags.

    That means, the Bit for USB_CONNECTED is also with rc9 always "1".

    It seems, the problem is also in rc9 NOT solved...

    • it does not seem to matter what is in those flags. set battery failsafe for your voltage and see if it triggers on correctly, after pre-arm checks completes.

      mine worked fine.  

      • OK, i will test it tomorrow.

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