Airboat Differential Motors Unsure about Arduboat set up. Need guidance/advice

Posted by Nicholas Lee on January 21, 2018 at 6:08am

This is my first Ardupilot / Autonomous Project.

I'm doing a project that requires this boat to go to a specific way point for water quality testing/sampling.
This Airboat configuration uses 2 air propelled motors are meant to be a differential thrust. 
No servo involved and thrust reversal.

I'm using Pixhawk2.1 . Futaba 10 J , Futaba R2008SB Receiver. Everything works well manually when i plug the motors to the receiver only but not the channels on Pixhawk2.1

Issue # 1
I'm not unsure about how to set the parameter for the motor to function as a differential thrust. 
I have tried many times, but the motors behave weirdly. 
Need some advice on which version or ArduRover to use and the parameter settings needed.

End Goal
End Goal of this project will require this Airboat to move to the way point autonomously ,and also control manually.

I appreciate any form of help. Thank you very much3691361819?profile=original

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Replies

  • Soton Hydro Team January 24, 2018 at 4:16am

    You may want to think about using the skid-steer mode in Ardurover. I think that will do basically what you want. The parameters are something like SKID_STEER_OUT and SKID_STEER_IN. You can either setup the transmitter to have traditional left/right steering and Ardurover will convert it to differential thrust (OUT) or set it up to directly control each motor with IN.

  • Jerry Campbell January 21, 2018 at 2:37pm

    Hi Nicholas, I'm not sure how much help I'll be.

    I built a Catamaran with differential steering a couple of years ago using an APM.

    I had a Turnigy 9X tx at the time. It worked great except I did not like it that the turning radius was unacceptable, too large, and there was no reverse. I was going to use reversible ESC's but never got around to it.

       I got the info on how to set up the mixes on the transmitter on Youtube, I searched for differential steering airboat. I think.

    The info is out there if you search.

    Good Luck

    Jerry

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