Another recent accomplishment with the Helicopter version of Arducopter was this full auto speed run which achieved a top speed of 30 m/s or 108 km/h. This was done using 3.2 which features improvements to the helicopter flight dynamics code, as well as Spline Waypoints which is a general Arducopter feature. I find the Spline nav really helps helicopter flight as it avoid jerking the helicopter which is very important at high speeds.
108 km/h in auto mode is a good accomplishment given that the absolute maximum speed this helicopter is capable of is 140 km/h, based on Retreating Blade Stall. This performance wasn't a fluke either, as not only do I do 2 back-to-back runs in the video, I did in fact run this mission 10 times while preparing to shoot the video.
For reference this is a relatively small helicopter, a Trex 500, which weighs only 2100g and is 90cm long.
Comments
Rob, Good job again. Is 3.2 ready for Traditional Helicopters or are you using your own custom version of it?
Regards,
David R. Boulanger
Best buy some BERP blades Rob. I remember this 216 knot heli flight. The X3 has gone faster but its a different kettle of ball games.
I love it, well done. Makes me want to put an APM on my Trex 450.
hi Rob, congrats for being a pioneer of using APM on helis. i remember that in 2012 you had been working hard to install APM 2.0 version on a 600 size heli. helis would always be a part of drone community and someone needs to work on them. i did manage to hover a align 450 in 2011 using APM1.0 but after some failure took over to quadcopters. i can again try my align 450 with pixhawk since i have a spare one. but 'someone' need to give me tuned params for align450. crashing of heli is a very costly affair.
I only have Flybar heli's, can the code be tweaked for them?
That awesome flight and expert pilot. It looked so fun.
Hi Rob,
Nice job again.
Hope can share some documentation how to mod Trex 500 to work with Pixhawk properly. Interested to use heli for mapping.
67mph for you yanks. You'd think the drone delivery startups would have used single rotor copters for longer range, but it's all about the current big thing. Can't remember what the latest flight dynamics improvements in Arducopter were.
Hi Rob,very impressive indeed and thanks for all the hard work. I am seriously consider to use heli for my mapping project for those area where plane is just impossible to fly. ( no landing area ).
Using Trex 500 or 550 as a test bed is great because of low cost and plenty of replacement parts available. It will be good if you can share how you build and modify your heli and the parameter so we can copy a known successful set up and gain experience from there. Ultimately I would like to use a gas heli for those long range mapping work.
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