Hey everybody,
I was wondering if anybody knows whether or not you can use an airspeed sensor with arducopter. As I understand it, with arduplane, the airspeed sensor acts like a barometer as well. And if so, I was wondering could an airspeed sensor pointed straight up on top of a multi, act as second barometer to give better accuracy when in loiter, alt hold etc. And also, because it can detect wind direction, it could help pixhawk sort out its position hold.
My original train of thought was to have a completely enclosed multi, so it is waterproof, and have an airspeed sensor, or some other kind of snorkel device to obtain altitude data due to the internals being sealed off.
Any thoughts or inputs are appreciated!
Replies
I would love to see airspeed sensor integrating into the Arducopter firmware. There are many good reasons why but let me give a few.
Airspeed is the biggest determiner of flight efficiency for quadcopters, just as is true with airplanes. Flying at the optimum airspeed without a sensor is impossible so one has to risk flying too slowly overall for good efficiency, or flying too fast and overstressing the motors to the point of failure.
It is true that a quad can hover and fly sideways or backwards, but they also have a front and the Pixhawk could easily disregard the airspeed sensor when flying in these other directions.
Similarly, I would love to have the Arduplane firmware allow a ground speed to be targeted (with a min. airspeed as well) instead of only airspeed as when flying a survey in wind the drone will always complete one leg at a faster speed than the upwind leg.
Pixhawk has an onboard barometer which is much more sensitive to pressure than an airspeed sensor, the airspeed sensor used in planes is optional and not used in barometric calculations. A pitot tube on a multirotor won't do much as it would always need to point in the direction of the airflow which is also obviously often low compared to a plane.
Air pressure would go through a small hole or snorkel quite easily so would give the correct barometric pressure (as long as the hole was not a tiny pin prick)
Check out Jake's Boxcopter: http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/salt-water-testing-the-boxcopter