Had a chance to compare the Naza M to AMP 2 this weekend and wanted to share the experience.
The comparison was done on two similarly sized custom built quads at ~24" span running the same props, motors, PDU and ESCs. The Naza quad had a Go Pro and Fat Shark FPV 5.8Ghz Transmitter and weighted in at about 3.1 Lbs. The APM Quad (mine) had no additional equipment besides a Sonar and it weighed about 2.75 Lbs.
In general both performed very well with a nod going to the Naza in Loiter, RTL and auto landing due to what appears to be a better GPS. Clearly APM has auto mode and Naza does not.. for the price the APM appears to be a solid value.
Stable Mode
As expected both quads were equally stable with no real noticeable difference in stability. The only big difference was NO TUNING on the Naza... it just worked out of the box.
Loiter
The Naza quad had a noticeable difference in loiter stability and accuracy. Granted my quad my not be tuned perfectly but the Naza held its position more accurately and with less twitching in the wind to do so. The Naza's corrections to the wind seemed to be invisible.. where the APM corrections were noticeable in both pitch and prop noise.
RTL
We did a RTL comparison taking off from the same spot and flying about 100 yards away at about 35 feet. The Naza returned to the exact spot of take off. APM got within 10 feet (see below).
Auto Landing
Testing the auto landing during RTL..... the Naza descended from 35 feet in what appeared to be about 5 foot increments. It was a very controlled decent. It landed perfectly on home and shutoff. As mentioned the APM quad hit the launch point within 10 feet. Its decent to landing was steadily and constant. When it touched down it then proceeded to skip around on the ground and went another 10 feet from its landing point before shutting down.
AutoPilot
The Naza has no autopilot. I finally got all the gremlins out of my APM and flew several successful missions which was very cool.
Cost
APM is ~$200 with GPS and Autopilot
Naza is ~$240 + and additional ~$160 for GPS. = $400
Replies
@Edgar Scott You really do have a point. Aside from all of the info they collect from you when purchasing there product, they make it a point that you as the end user HAVE to contact them to register your product, give them your email and even verify it...They obviously have taken the time to setup a system that is there just so they contact you with important info regarding your product. So Why not use it?
Definatley 2 radically different approaches. I was looking at some of the different options, with the entry level software offering 1-5 waypoints.... they are also using additional waypoints as incentives. There data link (telemetry, $520) for instance comes with an additional waypoint unlock code.
The approach almost mimics Android and Apple, with one requiring that you setup an account before the first use. Personally I like the DIY approach. There is something to be said for assembling, soldering and wiring your equipment together vs. plug and play. You learn allot about the system even before using it, and that really helps down the road when you run into problems or have to rebuild or upgrade..
There is another thing to compare... Camera Gimbal performance and configuration. I love APM and it's versatility. However, I have had issues with tuning the camera gimbal to function as I would expect.
I noticed that the Naza menus have a setting for servo max, center, and min. APM only has Max and Min. Since I have had trouble with obtaining an accurate centering, I think that maybe the addition of this center point could be helpful. Also, the standard APM gimbal channels are fixed at a 50hz frequency update. Although you can also hookup the gimbal servos to the outputs on the 490Hz output rail, it is unclear to me if the gimbal software actually utilizes a different update rate. This is essential for high speed ditigal servos and smooth gimbal operation. Naza offers an adjustable output frequency in configuration.
So, again I am a big supporter of APM. I would really like to see an increased emphasis on gimbal control so that we can accurately tune it for high-end AV application.
1) Revisit Servo Limit / Angle Limit tuning for accurate performance
2) Adjustable output frequency for high-speed digital servos
Cheers.
NAZA, Never a Ztraight Answer
I have APM 1, 2 and 2.5. I really appreciate the developer’s hard work and the community’s support for the product-it can be very challenging to find and answer to a problem, but it can be found. The features for the money are great! What I really don’t like is the lack of trust I have after every update.
I also have a couple Naza GPS’s and a WKM Single Waypoint V2 and an Atto V3. On these products I really appreciate the performance and confidence they bring in a very short set-up time-far better than APM for what I do.
Specifically to the WK products, support so far has been adequate-certainly not like the large DIY Drones community, but I’ve also had far less issues with the WK products. I have to admit if it weren’t for the APM I wouldn’t know how to tune the WK products so quickly! After one flight they were amazing!
In the end I think each product serves its target market well and if you think ANY product is overpriced and ill-equipped for your mission- then exercise your right not to buy it.
NAZA = Artificially restricted feature set to to support a tiered marketing structure leading to vastly over priced products, which go on to gouge customers for even further restrictions and "feature" licensing.
Arducopter = Pushing the hardware to the limits, constant updates bringing an ever more refined product. Massive community support where everyone tries to give the developers feedback in an open forum. Problems are found, discussed and resolved extraordinarily quick. No restrictions on features or tiered marketing license BS. And it's cheaper.
Seriously, it's no contest.
I've just watched this video about the naza: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mdnpwWiLmhQ
I termes of "how to set up" could arducopter take some notes. It seems so easy to setup.
By the way, ArduCopter 2.9 includes INS + baro mixing for altitude hold. In the tests by the dev team it's a significant improvement over baro-only which is what we've had up until now.
Getting INS working for the alt hold has opened the door for getting it working for loiter and navigation so I'm pretty hopeful that 2.9.1 will include a big improvement in that area too.
Per your question on transmitters and camera's... I am using Immersion RC 5.8GHz 600mW Tx with a FatShark NTSC 420TVL camera and a MinimOSD. Its all 5V and the transmitter / camera can be run from one of your ESCs
I have both the Naza and APM and have made similar observations to what has already been posted. I was curious if anyone knows what the Naza does with the GPS physical mounting location offset coordinates (x, y, and z) to the controller? I don't think APM has the same input.
Naza really doesn't have that many parameters to change but they felt the GPS physical location to the controller is important. Perhaps knowing this helps the Naza be more accurate.
Just curious.
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