Hi guys
We are desperately looking for assistance with a few issues we have currently with getting our ardupilot setup to function correctly within the simulator (XPLANE10) prior to taking to the field and loosing an airframe and / or more.
Firstly let me apologies that there are a number of questions rolled up in this post, I have tried to make it easier to follow by colour coding the questions in red, bold and italic
The setup is connected as follows:
Xplane10 is installed on an new Apple Mac Book Pro, connected via a 1gb/s ethernet hub to the windows XP PC running the APM planner - no major problems here, I can fly the simulator using my JR x2610 remote which is obviously feeding through the RC unit connected to the input rail of the ardupilot Mega 2, then via the usb connection to the planner and over the network to my Mac and XPLANE..
Radio transmitter is the JRx2610 and Reciever is the R770 that is generally sold with this model
The issues:
1) The controls seem to be way out of trim - super sensitive and actually the model plane is only really controllable if I switch to stabilise mode. (which is the only mode other than manual that works) but at least I'm getting comms back and forth.
So I'm assuming some PIDS setup I need to visit - does anyone concur with this? (haven't gotten a chance to adjust these yet and haven't adjusted anything from the default)
2) Only stabilize and manual modes work ... when I switch to auto, the plane cuts the throttle and banks right heading into a steep dive and crashes, same for all other 'auto' modes.
Any pointers as to where I am going wrong?
3) Only have a two way switch option on my remote so using the planner I alter the flight mode selection to the various options and then trigger it using the two way switch on the remote in order to try them all out - is there another way of doing this ? please point me in the right direction ..
4) The output to servos window indicates some interesting behaviour that I am not sure is correct - can someone confirm or lend a helping, 'diagnosis' hand - please see the images and notes below:
image :sim1 you can see what I get when looking at the servo output window - the large green movement was me moving the stick.
my question here is, why is the throttle the only channel that seems to be "stable"
and are these fluctuations normal ? - I don't think so...
image : sim2 - notice the fluctuations in the output graph are less violent than in sim 1 - this happens when ever i touch any stick on the remote .. then after about 15-20 secs the fluctuations increase to the size as seen in sim1
image : sim3man_stabilise - This is what I get when I switch from manual to stabilise and back to manual again -
so it seems to me the outputs should look flat or stable .. is this correct? in which case am I looking at at interference from the TX or power supply ? or something else?
I also noticed in a few posts that the servos "could" move during simulation flying... why don't mine move then .. they did up until I loaded the Sim version of the firmware to the board (which again I'm confused has the same version number as the arduplane v2.50 that was on it before)
can someone explain the difference between these version please?
Thank you all so much for everything that you have done on this project thus far - this technology is already changing the way conservationists do work and will continue to change the way we do our work as it develops into the future...
Regards
Simon
Replies
Hi Simon,
Still thinking of building the Pioneer? Hope so. Anyway, I happened to see your post here. I doubt I can help much, but I'll point out a few things.
1. If you haven't done so already, calibrate your radio on the Configuration page. I don't recall having to adjust any PIDs due to control sensitivity.
2. This problem seems to happen to a lot of people, myself included. First, on the Simulation page, I had to check Reverse Roll and Reverse Pitch. I think this was the cause of the plane diving and crashing when switching to Auto mode.
3. You don't have to program your switch to test all of the fligt modes. You can change these from within Mission Planner on the Flight Data page and under the Actions tab. Use the drop down box to select the mode you want and then click on the "Set Mode" button next to that drop down box. You can do this while the plane is in flight, whether in simulation or real.
That's about all I can address. I hope it helps a little.
Thanks,
Paul