A Demo of Helical Turns with an EasyStar in HILSIM / X-Plane 10 from Pete Hollands
A few days ago William Premerlani posted the theoretical maths behind a new control algorithm for MatrixPilot called Helical Turns.
This post shows a practical demonstration of flying MatrixPilot Helical Turns using an Easy Star in Hardware In The Loop Simulation (HILSIM).
Comments
@Terrence: You can pick them up the X-Plane 10 easystar model files using subversion from branch MatrixPilot_wjp_helicalTurns or from the branch in the MatrixPilot github repository. Best wishes, Pete
Where can I find the Easystar model for x-plane?
@Bill, Yes, I had set the parameters for Angle of Attack and Gains. Rudder Navigation was switched off (I only used Ailerons).
@Mark, I have also taken video in real EasyStar flights and it is similar to the Simulator. I want to move this to my Funcub shortly, and have gains for the 3 different flap settings. I am looking forward to hearing from somone who has tested this with flying wings soon.
@ Gary. Nice to hear from you. I love it too !
Love it
Very impressive, especially the turn coordination. I wouldn't have believed an EasyStar could fly that well inverted, either.
Thanks to Bill for the math and coding and to Pete for showing how well it can work with HILSIM/Xplane-10.
regards, Mark
Peter,
A couple aspects of your flight are worth commenting on.
During the 180 degree roll over on a straight flight segment, there was some loss of altitude. There is not much we can do about that with an EasyStar, it does not generate much lift when it is doing a knife edge. However, both the elevator and rudder were being used appropriately through the course of the roll over to maintain level pitch.
It was interesting to see how well the controls performed during inverted flight. During straight line flight segments you could see it pitched up slightly rather soon after the roll over. I assume that was due to the fact that you had set the angle of attack and elevator trim model parameters? I also point out that the performance of the angle of attack and elevator trim model is much better than that of a PID feedback controller during situations such as 180 roll over and hand launch, because it can respond faster to changing wing loading.
I also note that you could see both the rudder and the elevator responding quickly for the roll over and the turn, and I enjoyed listening to your servos applying the same deflections as in the X-Plane display.
Once again, thanks for sharing. Your video breathes life into the math.
Best regards,
Bill
Peter,
Thanks for posting this. It has been fun working with you and the rest of the MatrixPilot developers.
Best regards,
Bill