Hi, I'm really happy with my Pixhawk from 3DR so far, it's a nice looking, well working controller with huge potential.
I have got it to replace my APM2.6 that had some flaws, like follow-me mode not working at all.
Today I hooked my brand new Pixhawk, calibrated and test flown it with no problem at all. Did a couple of missions with succsesful RTL and Landing in Auto mode.
Then I wanted to try the follow-me mode with Andropilot, but unfortunately with no success: the copter behaved OK for 2 seconds then went crazy trying to agressively change direction multiple times per second, then fell down.
A moth ago I tried the same mod with APM2.6 and it behaved exactly the same. Back then I thought it's a hardware problem with my APM, but now I realize it has something to do with my setup, so I started suspecting every aspect:
1. AP Hardware - as both APM2.6 and Pixhawk behave the same I don't see an issue here
2. Radio modem - I use 3DR radios that work pretty well overall
3. Android phone - mine is Samsung Galaxy Note that has very good GPS/Glonass receiver with strong signal
4. Andropilot software - there's a lot of success reports of follow-me with Andropilot, don't know.
5. APM:Copter software - I run 3.1 on both APM and Pixhawk, devs please can you comment on this?
6. Europe??? - I'm conducting tests from Europe, maybe there's a bug or something preventing it working in Europe?
So guys, are there any success stories of APM:Copter 3.1 flown in follow-me mode in Europe?
P.S. there's also unsolved problem report in Andropilot user group:
http://diydrones.com/group/andropilot-users-group/forum/topics/follow-me-lead-it-on-arducopter-v-3-x
Replies
Hi ya'll,
Thanks for the reports of problems with follow-me in andropilot/droid-planner with 3.1/3.0. Yes Emile, I think that tuning is super important for showing (or hiding) this problem. See the following comment for more details:
http://diydrones.ning.com/group/andropilot-users-group/forum/topics...
Hello everybody. I also have problems with follow me mode.
The copter glitches on every new position it arrives. If your copter is not perfectly tuned, it can easly crash due to the very high and instant roll and pitch requests.
This is due to how the new inertial navigation works.
I'm trying to get to understand where the problem is, but I suspect we just have to wait for recent code changes to deal with it.
If you go back to 2.9 firmware you will enjoy an almost smooth follow me, but will miss all the goodies of the inertial nav.
Emile
I flew follow-me with Droidplanner last autumn, with 3.0-rc2 iirc.
My well-tuned quad was jerky at each movement start.
I also was disappointed that it didn't keep the initial distance to my tablet. Whenever I stopped it came right above my head.
Follow me works fine. Posting a tlog and a log would be helpful to diagnose your setup problems.
Sorry to hear about your problem. I am just finishing to assemble my last FPV quad with pixhawk on it. I will try to experiment with follow me mode if I can beginning of march during the next school holidays.