ArduCopter 3.2 (aka APM:Copter) has been released as the default version replacing AC3.1.5. This is the exact same version that we invited all users to test two weeks ago. Users who wish continue using AC3.1.5 can find it under the "Pick previous firmware" version on the MP's Install Firmware screen.
The full list of changes can be found in the ReleaseNotes but here are the highlights:
Flight Mode Enhancements:
- PosHold flight mode: similar to Loiter but with direct response to pilot input during repositioning
- ACRO mode handling improvement EXPO (for faster rotations)
- Drift mode uses "throttle assist" (similar to AltHold)
- Smoother transitions between flight modes (i..e when entering Loiter or RTL from high speeds)
Mission Enhancements/Fixes:
- Spline waypoints
- Do_Jump, Conditional_Distance, Conditional_Delay fixed
- Do_Set_ROI persistent across waypoints
- Condition_Yaw accepts relative heading (i.e. current heading + 20)
- Reset horizontal position target when taking off in AUTO to avoid lean due to GPS position drift
- Rally points (Pixhawk only)
New Sensors/Devices:
- Lidar-Lite Range Finder, SF02, MaxBotix I2C sonar and Analog sonar (which was missing for Pixhawk)
- EPM Gripper
Safety Features:
- EKF/DCM check will switch to LAND mode if heading error > 60deg for 1 second
- Baro glitch detection
- Pre-arm check for Gyro calibration success
- Pre-arm check that internal & external sensors (gyros, accels and compass) are consistent (Pixhawk only)
- Parachute support (Pixhawk only)
- Feedback to Pilot when taking off in AltHold, Loiter, PosHold (i.e. motors spin up a little as throttle is raised)
- EKF (new attitude and position estimate system only used for reference in this release)
Bug Fixes:
- Pixhawk GPS driver buffer overflow that could lead to missed GPS messages
- Pixhawk I2C bug that could lead freeze up if I2C bus is noisy
Known issues/Warnings:
- Pixhawk users will need to recalibrate their compasses
- PosHold won't show up as option on FlightMode screen if you have an old version of mission planner. Please select Help > Check for Updates.
- Landing detector is more strict meaning it may take longer to disarm after RTL, AUTO.
- Set THR_MID parameter especially if you have a very powerful copter because "Feedback to Pilot" raises throttle to 1/2 of THR_MID
- Spline twitches slightly as it passes a waypoint especially if WPNAV_SPEED is set > 500.
- Dropped support for NMEA and SIRF GPS on APM boards (ran out of Flash space)
- Dropped support for sonar for MultiCopters on APM1 and TradHeli on APM1 & APM2 (ran out of Flash space)
If you hit issues, please post them in the APM Forum and include a dataflash log file if possible.
Special thanks to Marco and the Beta Testing team from the AC3.2 beta testing thread who put their copters at risk in the pursuit of a smooth, safe release. Here are links to some of their videos: Marco's DJIs900, Holger's Water Tower, Josh's Acro, Ray's TradHeli2&FPV, Raph's Hawaii, PhillS's CommandYaw, Thor's Zombie Run&FollowMe, Phanivyas's Test, Rob's TradHeli, Christian's Test1&Test2, Balloon's Spline, JimJ's FPV, Ultrojo's ROI & Spline&FollowMe1&FollowMe2, Troy's Mission
Thanks also to the code contributors to this release including Tridge, Jonathan, Leonard, RobL, Paul Riseborough, MichaelO, Julien Dubois, David Dewey, Andrew Chapman, Emile, Allyson and many more. If you want to get involved check-out our dev wiki.
Comments
ouch, I guess I should consider myself lucky that when I have failures it's during pre-arm...
Here's a snippit of the graph during my good flight:
and here's duribng the failed pre-arm check on the next flight about 2 minutes later:
If anyone else would like to see the actual logs, they are here:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/hp8oa58nbzl5707/1.zip?dl=0
I'm working on getting a new unit as to me that looks like a hardware issue - but looking at all of the reports of similar issues has me wondering if it's not something else?
Hi! Yesterday I was flying my quad with Pixhawk and Arducopter 3.2 for five minutes and suddenly the quad did a drift to the right and fell.
When I connected the Pixhawk the mission planner, the following message appears: "BAD HEALTH ACCEL"
My Quad has fallen three times caused by the same problem.
But this time it was destroyed.
Any Solution?
I did install 3.2 on my quad copter, but has issue with maintening the Alt Hold. Is this a known problem?
Effectivelly, when flying in Stabilize at constant altitude and switch to AltHold, the quad starts to go up, ignoring the initial altitude.
Any idea why doing like this? When flying FPV (without OSD), I cannot trust the AltHold mode, I need to approx the altitude visual, and can not be sure it is keeping a constant altitude.
that's very similar to what I am seeing, except when I reviewed the logs of my last attempt the IMU2 values were pretty much flat-lined at around -80.
That was after a successful 8+ minute flight. Got the BAD ACCEL HEALTH error after I swapped lipos. Back at the house the error was gone.
It was around 40 degrees outside when I flew.
I've sent one good and one bad log to Randy for review, hopefully he gets some time to look over them soon. My case may be a hardware issue though.
Side question - if I disable accel check pre-arm, does it disable any other checks?
@Accel Health
I had some problems regarding accel health, too.
Went to my flying field and the Copter wouldn´t arm - Pip, pip.
MissionPlanner reporting "Accles not healthy". Trying to recalibrate returned "Calibration failed" on MissionPlanner, APM-Planner reported NaN as values.
When I got home, it armed without problems.
I did the Autotest on my previous logs and it returned an "IMU Mismatch"-Warning (Value: 0.79) and in one case "Failure" (Value: 2.1)
At home the ACC-values of the two IMUs were quite the same.
As it is quite cold outside, I checked the values at the end of the flight. And as you can see in the attached picture, the IMUs were quite off.
So in my case I expect the problem to be the different characteristics of the two IMUs regarding temperature.
Is there a new check in 3.2 comparing the values of the two IMUs during access-calibration?
Hope this helps, I think I will try to redo the accel-calibration in different temperatures and load them regarding the outside temperature...
For Yaw issue. If you have tuned the Yaw control properly but still suffer from that overshoot issue, maybe it would be worth to define a param for that Yaw_overshoot threshold.
Basically, I think it would make sense to have a tunable param (or autotunable, or extrapolated from the yaw PID factors to avoid one more param in the list) instead of fixed value when it's linked to hardware (here for example the unbalanced aerodynamism of the frame and it's inertia to recover from yaw disturbance)... the same way there are PIDs.
Hi Mike,
I downloaded the newest beta version of Mission Planner. After I shut down and relaunched the beta version, ArduCopter V3.1.5 was available.
Thanks,
Bill
The reason I brought the Yaw issue up was that I was flying in windy conditions where I say after about a minute that my copter had rotated 90 degrees from where I put it. Checking the logs showed that a little at a time it was being turned by the wind until it finally was off by over 90 degrees.
From the logs I see that copter is pushed by 15 to 20 degrees and the copter makes little effort to turn back. After a while the copter is way off course. I think that 10 degrees is not enough as the error of just flying is more than that.
Here is the original log when I saw that the copter had turned. This is a 10 mph wind blowing left to right across the IRIS. If the copter would have even over corrected a little it might have stayed on course.
404.bin
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