Announcing: ArduCopter 2.7
In just a short while, ArduCopter 2.7 will become available for download in Mission Planner. As we worked on ArduCopter 2.6.1, we saw that it had several new and compelling features (as well as many bug fixes and improvement) so it was decided to make this a major version release.
A full list of changes is here, but they include:
New and Improved:
- NEW: 3-axis camera stabilization
- NEW: AP_Limits library: Altitude limits and geofencing.
- NEW: Automatic Flip (Roll axis) is now enabled on Channel
- NEW: GPS lag estimator
- Better altitude control in ALT_HOLD and better altitude transitions
- Better loiter, especially with the new 3DR uBlox GPS. Check out the video from Marco above!
- Better yaw control
- Better DCM implementation, resulting in noticeably smoother flight
- Better velocity control in Auto missions
- Etc
Bugfixes:
- Fix to dataflash erasing, which should resolve an issue some users were having
- Fix some MAVLink commands
- Fix Circle command
- Fix some units
- Etc
Notes:
No more 1280 support (out of program space)
Comments
@ Randy
Actually 50hz seems a bit low when compared to the "other guys" doing camera stabilization? How much margin do we have in the APM2 to increase the output rate.
I have been doing quite a bit of research of available and upcoming gimbals, including standalone stabilizers (which the 3-axis APM would be). 50hz is ok for analogue servos, but the higher end digital ones tend to like much higher rate. For example the piclox outputs at 400-500hz (don't quote me on that.. it's high though) ,and the new HoverFly gimbal controller, which has been getting great reviews, is at 800hz. Even the WKM with recent updates has 400hz. The new autoquad has two modes, 50hz and a higher rate ( I think 400hz).
So the trend is higher output rates. Users with much more experience then I say it's definitely noticeable.
@Gerrit, I had the same issue with pitch on my cam. Everything worked except pitch. In order to get it to work I had to erase eeprom and reset. I reloaded the firmware and changed all my PIDs back and pitch started to work!
Great Job!
I just flew with standard parameters and for me this is the first release that had reasonable loitering in windy conditions right out of the box. With all provious version I never could manage anything but mediocre a no wind conditions. This should be much better after some tuning.
I downloaded from the mission planner 1.2 (great job for that too btw).
I do have one problem though, it seems that I can't enable camera pitch control from the mission planner. When I set 'Tilt' to CAM_P nothing happens. 'Roll' to CAM_R is working as expected.
Im a pretty much a newbie to arducopter, and just setup a quadcopter about 3 - 4 weeks back. It will sound really odd, but how would one upload the new arducopter 2.7 firmware into our multirotor?
Regards
Suan Ruey
Just a quick call-out to some of the people who made this such a great release: Tridge for even more great DCM work, Jason Short for a stunning display of the power of his sim, Randy Mackay for awesome team coordination, Andreas Antonopoulos for code reviews, countless fixes and coordination, Craig Elder for dataflash fixes, Robert Lefebvre for yaw and trad heli improvements, Amilcar Lucas for camera work, Marco for tireless testing along with Pat Hickey, Jonathan Challenger for important fundamental work on yaw and AHRS issues and as always Michael Oborne for evolving the Mission Planner alongside at lightspeed. (And countless other people on the dev teams who contribute in small ways and big every day!)
Huge thanks to all of you!
Excellent!
@Duran,
You can thank Jason and Robert Lefebvre for the improved yaw. It uses a rate controller now when the stick is out of the deadband..so that's much more accurate than just pushing the heading around which is what we use to do.
Thanks Randy. Something must have been corrupted somehow. I had to erase and reset. Loaded FW again and reapplied settings. That finally got it working!
Thanks Randy, that makes sense. Loaded 2.7 earlier and wow, the YAW is the most noticeble change for me. great work as always.
@Duran, Emin,
There are two separate pages, one for the arduplane and one for arducopter. We will bring them together eventually but for now the set-up is a bit different including the channels that you use. On Arduplane you can choose any channel from 5~8 for the servos.
On ArduCopter:
APM1: Roll on CH6, Pitch on CH5, Yaw on CH8
APM2: Roll on CH10, Pitch on CH11, Yaw on CH8
In retrospect using CH8 on the APM1 is probably not a great idea...probably should have used channel 10 or 11. Something for the next patch!
Did you read and try all this(fly,configuration,calibration...)? http://code.google.com/p/ardupilot-mega/wiki/Tracking
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