Today I did a lot of testing and tuning with the new unreleased beta version of ArduCopter code, known as "2.9.2ß" (V3 i think for the official exit), quad with APM V2.5 and U-Blox GPS by 3DRobotics.
The inertial control developed by Leonard and Randy, with the support of Jason, is finally giving the results that for over a year all we are waiting.
To be perfectly sure I've repeated this test at least 10 times in three different flight, with the same great performance.
As you can see from this image and video the max radius in Loiter is now not over one meter in windless/gusty winds and max two meters in strong crosswind, near the position hold performance of the best commercial product, DJI Wookong-M.
We are trying to improve the waypoint navigation but now we're here, the next release will be really a milestone.
We still have to solve a few problems related to the inertial control x/y/z, but I am sure that the excellent results achieved so far are to mean that we are on the right track.
I attach the telemetry log.
DJI, here we come...
Ciao!
Marco
-= AC Dev Team =-
EDIT: in my video you can see the version "3" of the code, nothing secret of course, is the current master branch on GitHub called at the moment "2.9.1b-DEV".
Jason Short on the dev list has proposed to move version from 2.9.1 to 3.x for the massive changes inside the code (ap_hal, PX4 support and other), and following its proposal I have appointed as such in my videos, that's all.
Comments
Thanks Marco, I will try your parameters, I don't have a U-Blox GPS (and many thousands of APM owners do not have either), sorry, it will have to work with the MTK GPS.
@Hughes, are you talking about the wobbles/small twitches in Loiter? If so they've been there a long time, although not officially acknowledged, they are apparently less or absent with a U-Blox GPS but that's not what the majority of APM users use. There was also hope that they would be entirely eliminated in v2.9.2
@Graham: try again please but with my parameters, of course, recalibrate accelerometer and tune other setting for your setup, then leave me your impression... must use U-Blox gps!
Please be careful because there is now a tremendous pendulum effect, start the Loiter with the quad fairly immobile, not during a translated flight.
@Huges: the small (for me are big) wobbles are completely absent in Stabilize/Acro on my setup so i think my tuning is quite perfect (many of my videos prove it) although i can always improve, so are induced by the inertial controller, that for this and other reasons requires some fix.
I await your feedback, it's important to understand if i'm just lucky (I do not think).
Just tried it Marco, Alt Hold is great but it's always been on my quad, Loiter wasn't good, it tries to wander off in a random direction, I didn't let it go more than 2 or 3m before switching back to Alt Hold. Do you want a log and/or tlog?
Great Marco! it is scandalously good especially with the wind. It just need now in V3 to make coffee and deliver donuts in auto feeding mission.
Question : I see in your video (look at the tip of the arms) small wobbles. Is that bad tuning or something else ?
I am interested because in 2.9.1 on APM2.5 on my quad I have the same phenomenon and cannot figure out what causes that ? (too high P, too high D or both or something else ?)
@James: the better solution imho is two different dampening system mounted a sandwich, is the right way to remove different frequency of vibration, for example foam pad + Zeal silicon gel is a good solution.
@Daniel: try with this version of Arduino, in the "ArduPilot" menu select the right board.
It keeps getting better and better, great stuff! Mr Robustini, what would be your recommendations for vibration dampening on the apm? Foam pads? Silicon like Zeal pads? And how much does vibration affect the apm board?
I mean there are vibration but not too many, I'm trying to simulate the classic setup of users, almost all unfortunately have a bit of vibration.
Yes, in this quad the APM is not properly insulated from vibration (only four little MK rubber dumper), so I let it specially for experimenting with the inertial, the large height changes are related to the vibration.
Looking pretty good Marco. And what movement there is, might still be it "following" the GPS signal again.
It does seem to be just a little bit "busy". And the Alt_Hold isn't as good as I've experienced. Do you know why?
A new video, sorry for the poor quality, look at the shadown of the quad to evaluate the maximum radius, obviously considering the height variations.
There was gusty wind today here, in the park behind my house, the quad has not moved more than 1 meter of radius from the original Loiter point, and height so low does not help!
Sonar is disabled, sometime i make a little correction in altitude, nothing all.
The little shaky for now remain, I spoke with Randy Leonard and figuring out how to remove them, i use SimonK ESC's, i wait your feedback.
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