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Arducopter Beta 2.0.38

Posted by Jason Short on July 30, 2011 at 2:30pm

 

UPDATE:

Please note that the initialization of Gyros was requested to move to the Arming function. This had the unintended consequence of making the Ground Station report erroneous attitude until the unit is armed at least once. This is changed already in the next version 2.0.39 which is still in development. Thanks.

 

This is a nice update and is recommended for everyone. I've gotten a half dozen flight in with it and have had good success. I'll be incorporating some of the ideas mentioned in the suggestions post over the next few versions. 

 

What's new:

I reworked the startup so it's much faster. Also, a feature a lot of folks wanted, calibrating the IMU at first Arming is in there. If you hand launch, please do your first arming of the motors on the ground.

I enabled a mode filter for sonar. Not too thoroughly tested performance wise, but it does work. (note, if you rely on the rangefinder class, you must rework your code to be compatible.)

RTL bugs are squashed and it's flying really well now.

Added a special filter in the PID for the derivative term to get rid of the alt hold and loiter issues from noisy sensors. 

Added a completely experimental mode called circle. It will by default spin the copter in a 10m circle from the point at which it was engaged. And it will Yaw towards that point at all times.

Yaw while navigating happens at quarter speed, which was problematic before.

Roll and Pitch Imax are higher 5° than before (.5°)

Logging seems to work now. Please erase the log after installing.

Everything else is mentioned on the SVN.

 

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Comments

  • Vincent Mees July 31, 2011 at 9:12am

    Also tested v38. I find that sonar althold was better in the previous version but I still have to check if the PID's were chaged. I used default in 37. For stability no problems at the moment. Loiter also gave we bigger and bigger circle compared to the v37 yesterday were loiter worked very well even with a breeze.

     

  • Jeff E July 31, 2011 at 9:06am

    Ok so Im not the only one with weird virtual horizon. I guess it may be due to the new start up sequence or new library is not yet completely integrated to Mission planner. I guess I can fly it tomorrow. Crossing fingers...

     

    I always change my PID since my quad is a smaller frame and they respond really well. Will try my PID in .38 see how the RTL and maybe attempt CIRCLE if the wind will permit me. I has been gusty recently in my area.

     

    Thanks Matthew for sharing

  • Matt Gaige July 31, 2011 at 8:56am

    I uploaded .38 this morning with Mission Planner and went through a complete setup. Came from 2.37.  The first things noticed was a Horizon display all out of whack, but slowly it returned to level after I moved it a little by handle.  The second issue was the QC would not take off level, so I had to re-level it through CLI setup.

    Using default PIDs

     

    1)  I found Alt_hold with Sonar very good.

    2)  RTL has the same issue from past versions (for me)... on selection of RTL the QC pitches 45 Deg to home and races back to me.  Very un-nerving.  I have to abort.

    3)  Loiter works well for a minute, but like the past, starts making larger and larger circles until I have to abort.  This was in very little breeze.

     

    I am puzzled at this since I am very thorough in my setup and cal. and wait for good GPS lock.  But I am very grateful for the community and this enjoyable project.

  • Helldesk July 31, 2011 at 7:07am

    Whee... did a loiter test running 2.0.38, with modified PID values in a very windy conditions. Default P is 1.4, I changed it to 0.8; default D is 1.4, here it was 1.2:

    3692245519?profile=original

    Unfortunately the camera I had attached to my head was pointed wrong so the quad is mostly out of frame, but it does make an appearance about 55 seconds in. The wind was a few meters per second at least.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p4mgKsGXH9E

    Here's the log: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/35516879/31-07-11%2004-52%202.log

  • Jeff E July 31, 2011 at 5:46am

    Just want to check with you this weird stuff going with Mission Planner and 2.0.38. I have an APM/Frame that has been working well since 2.0.33-.37 and it just came from a test flight with a heavy payload everything went well.

    Test 1

    - loaded the 2.0.38 via mission planner

    - used the first time setup

    - calibrate radio

    - enabled sonar/compass and set declination

    - I tried to connect via mission planner see if orientation is correct

    result: the virtual horizon is slant and it keeps moving to some direction until it becomes horizontal but the pitch is downwards. Still moving even tho my quad is level. moving the quad will move it in the correct way but the horizon is wrong

    Test 2

    - loaded 2.0.38 via Arduino IDE

    - configured via serial monitor

    - erase eeprom/reset and recalibrate

    - test shows correct value and IMU is not giving weird values

    - tested on mission planner and same thing it moves almost same manner as the first test

    - tried to update mission planner (but already latest version) suddenly it was working normal. Horizon is correct and its not moving by itself

     

    Test 3

    - Used another APM (New)

    - loaded firmware via Mission planner

    - same result

     

    I reconnected the first APM and same result again after closing mission planner every now and then it will go back to normal.

     

    I want to try and fly it but its a bit scary if it thinks the virtual horizon is not leveled. Did I do anything wrong or do I need to check anything? I havent tried to restore 2.0.37 and see if same thing happens but I doubt as it has been flying well on .37

     

    PS: Bug on mission planner about declination changing from "+" to negative is still there need to manually change it everytime.

  • Vincent Mees July 31, 2011 at 3:44am

    Great news of the new version.

    Yesterday I did a RTL test with 2.0.37. Quite some wind and the nose was pointing away from me. I changed from loiter to RTL and the quad turned very agressive its nose towards me and came flying at quite some speed, overshooting its homepostion and then turningagain very aggresive. When I say aggresive, it really banks to the right. Nevertheless, I could certainly see that the quad knew the home position.

     

    In the new code, what are the different parameters like RTL speed and etc?? 

  • Helldesk July 31, 2011 at 12:00am

    Well, the default PID values are too twitchy to my taste, on my frame at least! The quad tilts with a certain enthusiasm I'm not partial to (I felt like I had to override a lot). I suppose I want to reduce the P value just like I did with the previous version. How did the loiter change to this version, any ideas for ballpark figures to start with?

    3692245044?profile=original

    Didn't manage to get video from that, what a pity. (Some of the sharp changes were probably my doing.)

  • Jeff E July 30, 2011 at 10:42pm

    Wow, wasnt there earlier but glad its finally out. Loading 2.0.38 and will testing soon. so excited

  • Helldesk July 30, 2011 at 10:11pm

    I'm going out to test loiter in a bit; managed to get 2.0.38 uploaded after a couple of false starts. Exciting!

  • Jim Phoenix July 30, 2011 at 9:15pm

    In the middle of all the alt hold issues, had a magnetometer failure, removed it, cleaned it up and re-installed and now its working fine. The key to this APM stuff is reading all of the manuals, posts, blogs and other data and then trying stuff repetitively until it works. It can be a puzzle, but I truly enjoy troubleshooting and this is the purest form of that - and I don't understand at least half of what I'm doing, so it's truly entertaining for my wife (who is getting quite good at flying the quad).

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