Discussions

I'm starting to prepare for the next ArduPlane release, and I have updated the beta release on http://firmware.diydrones.com so everyone can test the release now.

The biggest change in this release is the inclusion of the new L1 navigation controller developed by Brandon and Paul. I've been doing a lot of flight testing with the new controller and it really is amazing how much better it flies waypoints and loiter compared to the old controller.

When tuning for the new controller there are a few things you should know:

• the old HDNG2RLL_* parameters are gone
• the key tuning parameter for the new L1 controller is called NAVL1_PERIOD.

The default value for NAVL1_PERIOD is 30, which is very conservative. It will give you very gentle turns and very smooth flight. For most RC aircraft you will want a smaller value, but I decided to use a large value by default as I would prefer the first test flight for new users to be too gentle rather than too sharp.

I suggest you tune by flying a large rectangular AUTO mission, and reduce the NAVL1_PERIOD in steps of 5 until you start to get a bit of "snaking" after a turn. Then raise it slowly until it flies turns exactly as you want it to.

Please give the beta release a test, and post some feedback on how it goes!

Cheers, Tridge