Has anyone attempted this on the X8? The X8 does not seem to be particularly prone to yaw wobble. Nonetheless, yaw control would be nice to have. And, implementing differential spoilers would be an interesting exercise. Any attempts?
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We have implemented elevons on our X8 Quadplane and were wondering if we can have both Elevons and differential spoilers, since we have two servos and control surfaces per side. What would it take to enable this functionality?
I've implemented (and flown) a fix for differential spoilers, submitted as Pull Request #1736. Source and hex files are also posted here: http://www.etheli.com/APM/ArduPlane_v3.2.0_etMod
--ET
Update: The existing differential spoiler code in APM:Plane 3.3 works. Sorta. There are two issues (so far).
1. Only channels 10 and 11 work to drives servos. Channels 5-9 do not work. I am not sure if this is a bug or a feature. Nonetheless, the documentation specifies channels 5-11. And, it would be nice to have more servo channels, if needed. What is wrong with channels 5-9?
2. The differential spoilers work in a stabilized mode (Stab, etc). But, they are not responsive in Manual mode. I think that they should at least mirror the elevons. This seems to be something that should be changed in the code.
Not tried it however I do get quite a lot of dutch roll on the X8s I use so this may be really interesting to cancel that out.
Does it allow you to deploy both sides to act as an airbrake, that would be quite handy for steep approaches?
The documentation does not mention airbrake functionality. But, I do not think it would be too difficult to add (though, one would need to consider flaperon/spoiler command while braking and reduce the braking on the other wing).
My thoughts are that an airbrake would be very useful with the X8 while landing, and more importantly, having a feedback loop directly around yaw would be fantastic.
I may mess around with this on my X5 before I implement on my X8...