I've been working on testing and making a few changes to AC3.0 lately, and did a whole bunch of test flights today which went very well. AC3.0 is simply amazing, and there's more good things to come, including a real acro mode that myself, Leonard and few other people have been working on. Hopefully it should be released in 3.1, along with the changes I'm making to the TradHeli code. Most of what I've done to 3.0 are relatively minor, the official 3.0 does work fine on TradHelis, but my changes make it more stable and precise, and perfect the take-off and landing.
I shot a video to show of the performance of the system. I was hoping for a very windy day, but the weather hasn't been coorperating lately. Not only is the wind not very high, but the space weather is bad and I experienced a lot of GPS drifting today.
Anyway, here you go. It's a bit long, but I wanted to be thorough.
Comments
Very impressive.
What dampening measures are you taking on that 800 size? I'm sure everyone would love to see a video of that thing flying as well.
Thanks guys. I'm super happy with the performance. I'm helping a local university set up a TRex 800 for Aerial Photogrammetry, and I have to say I had been a bit nervous about the whole thing, but I am feeling much more confident lately. The new code is very confidence inspiring. I don't have a feeling that it's suddenly going to do anything weird anymore. Mode changes are very controlled, and missions run very smoothly.
The only thing I'd say is that if you have a big expensive heli, it's still best to take off and do the touchdown manually. I did have one incident yesterday where on lift-off, I think the rear stabilizer fin stuck in the ground or something, I'm not sure, but it pivoted back on the tail quite a lot, almost 45° before it unstuck but was basically out of control. I killed the motor, and it came down and landed on the skids but, it wasn't pretty.
Likewise on landing, the possibility of a tip-over is always there. The best thing is just to do the final landing manually, or, kill the motor when it's 6-12" above the ground. It then just settles easily.
Awesome demo! Damn, I need more apms :)
Excellent video demonstration of the capabilities of arducopter on the tradheli!
Brilliant!! My trad helis (TRex 600, 450, 250) have been waiting for this to mature and it looks like the wait is about over! Super!!!
+1 extraordinary really for the cost of the kit required.
Stunning. And the synthesized Mission Planner reports in the background are a nice touch ;-)
Congrats!
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