Hey guys
I was just wondering if anyone else was experiencing a problem I'm currently struggling with. I am running mission planner 1.2.99 (on Windows 7 64 bit with all of the latest updates) with ArduPlane V2.78b successfully loaded onto my pixhawk. I have tried and can load all firmwares of all the different vehicles successfully, as well as both Quad and Heli simulator versions of the firmware without a problem. Whenever I try to load the plane simulator software however it gives me the error shown in the attachment (something about Invalid URI).
The rest of my setup looks like this (all of these things are connected and working well):
-3dr gps module
-3dr radio
-px4 airspeed indicator
-orange satellite receiver connected to dx7 radio
- the power module received with the pixhawk connected to a 3300mAh LIFEPO4 battery, which has a bridged connecting to channel 8 on the servo rail for powering servos.
I have tried rolling back to previous ArduPlane firmwares and afterwards try to reload the simulator software, without success. I have also tried going through qgroundcontrol, but that is something I really wouldn't recommend. I loaded px4 firmware and afterwards had a big battle to restore APM firmware ( I had to use the reset button a few times, remove the sd card, reset again and run the MP wizard a few times and eventually got lucky to get back to 2.78b). Also with qgroundcontrol in APM mode I don't even see the option of loading HIL firmware.
I also tried downloading the HIL firmware file straight from the repository (http://firmware.diydrones.com/Plane/stable/apm2-hilsensors/) and then used the "load custom firmware" option without success.
Based on the above info I now have a few questions which the internet seems unable to answer (or more likely I'm just unable to find them in the massive amount of info scattered all over the place):
- Is my problem unique ? (can someone be so kind as to please try and replicate it)
- How exactly do I go about loading custom firmware (do I need a compiler for example or a local repository in a specific location on my pc) ?
- Does simulation work with all of my instruments connected or should I actually remove everything except the safety switch and buzzer?
Thanks in advance, must say this is an awesome community!
Replies
Ah, I thought that I might be the only one having that problem - I'm still new to these code bases. I looked through the MP code initially for an error, but didn't find one and (after not finding any pixhawk HIL versions of builds on firmware.diydrones.com daily builds even when apm1 and apm2 have HIL) concluded they just aren't being made for some reason. Is it b/c there's SITL for pixhawk? The little I've done with SITL I haven't been happy with the results. I'm still learning my way through the Arduplane (or APM:plane?) codebase and confusing history.
Anyway, I ended up compiling my own HIL versions of the firmware for the pixhawk. Basically, I installed the px4/pixhawk make toolchain for windows as described at http://dev.ardupilot.com/wiki/building-px4-with-make/ . You can use git/github to get the version of Ardupilot that you want to build with. After slogging through the make files and Arduplane code base, I concluded that to make the HIL version for the pixhawk, you just have to run "make px4-v2-hil" in step 6 on that link. I also tried it with HIL_SENSORS set in the config file and just using "make px4-v2" and both seem to work the same behavior.
I agree it'd be great if you could just upload HIL arduPlane via MP.
I've also been thinking about a way to make arduplane be able to switch between HIL and normal mode with just a command, or maybe reboot. But I haven't gotten the time to try that yet and am still learning my way around the firmware.
I have the same problem loading onto a Pixhawk. I'll let you know if I figure it out.
I think everyone with a pixhawk needs to make a feature request for adding APM HIL simulation firmware support for the unit.
are you loading onto a px4 or a apm2?
Hi Michael
Thanks for the reply. I'm loading onto the px4 (pixhawk, px4mu2 or whatever else it's called - it's quite confusing). Anyway I've since done some reading and it seems as if the HIL simulation version of the APM firmware is not supported for the pixhawk yet. Is that correct? It's a shame seeing as I really prefer using mission planner and the apm firmware. Now if I want to do HIL simulation I have to load px4 firmware using qgroundcontrol.
Do you think it would be difficult to add support for the px4? Thanks for your great work on MP by the way.
Just an update, I tried loading the firmware with no instruments connected, same result however.