Matrix Nav Issue

Hi GuysI recently got the red UAV IMU dev board and I tried the Roll Pitch demo, this seemed to work fine for me when I tested with servos. One thing I noticed was that when I tilted the board the servos reacted when I held the board steady at that tilted position the servos creeped back to their home positions. Not sure why this is or is it supposed to do this.My current problem is even though I get roll pitch demo working I cant get the MatrixNav firmware to work for me. I have loaded it onto the board no problem but then nothing happens. I have tried with gps attached gps off, radio attached and off but not a thing. When I power up the board the red and green light come on, the green turns off after about a second, the red stays on for 2 more secs then it goes out and starts to flash for ever. (this happens whenther radio and gps are attached or not)Should the board output any response to the servos if no radio/GPS is attached?Any help would be much appreciated.ThanksTony

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  • T3
    Tony,

    I'll answer both of your questions.

    First, with regard to the roll-pitch demo, I assume that you mean the latest version of the roll-pitch-yaw demo.

    The behavior that you reported is not quite what it is supposed to be. Possibly you built the wrong project. There are two projects in the file, one for the green board, one for the red board. Just to be sure, I suggest that you download the demo firmware and build the red project.

    What is supposed to happen in the demo is that if you roll or pitch the board, the servos will indicate the cosines of the roll and pitch angles. The gyros track the fast changes in roll and pitch, the accelerometers track the drift. So, if you roll or pitch the board, the servos should react, but if you hold the board steady in the new position, they should not drift back.

    Another possibility is that you moved the board while it was initializing and zeroing the gyros and accelerometers. For the demo to work properly, you need to hold the board steady until the red LED goes out.

    Before you proceed to using the board in flight, we need to make sure that the roll-pitch-demo is behaving as expected. Let me know if it does not, I will help you dig deeper. But, in any case, you still should be able to do a ground demonstration of MatrixNav.

    With respect to MatrixNav, the firmware will not proceed past the initialization stage unless the GPS has a lock and unless the radio is connected to the board correctly. For full information, see the basic instructions for MatrixNav, as well as the instructions for waypoints.

    In a nutshell, in order for the initialization to proceed, you need to have a GPS connected to the board and running, as well as connection between your radio and channel 4 of the board. Channel 4 is used both for mode control as well as for a health check. Also, the GPS needs to have a valid navigation solution. It takes about a minute or two after the board powers up for this to happen. For a GPS "fresh out of the box", you may need to cycle the power on the board once. When you first connect the GPS to the board, the small red LED on the GPS board may come on. Once the UAV DevBoard communicates to the GPS for the first time, the red LED on the GPS board will go out.

    You mentioned that the green LED comes on and then goes out. This means that there isn't anything connected to the board's PWM input channel 4, so definitely the firmware will not initialize.

    So, if you want to check out MatrixNav, I suggest that you take the board outside and follow the instructions to connect everything up. When the board finishes a successful initialization, the rudder will wag a few times.

    Best regards,
    Bill Premerlani
  • 3D Robotics
    It won't do anything until you get GPS lock. Put it outside and wait 10-15 minutes.
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