We tried to put a smooth motors transition in the "PX4 VTOL" code.
This video shows the results we obtained after a little tuning, using a "Pixhawk flight controller" and "U-Blox M8N gps".
Special thanks to Roman Babst and Lorenz Meier, who are working hard to make their code safe and powerful.
Marco
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Initial QuadPlane documentation for ArduPilot is here:
http://plane.ardupilot.com/wiki/quadplane-support/
Hi Marco,
One more critical parameter. You need to set SCHED_LOOP_RATE to 400. Otherwise it will run the copter code with an update rate of 50Hz, which won't do well.
That means all of plane will run at 400Hz, but that should be fine. If you notice anything strange in fixed wing modes let me know.
Cheers, Tridge
Hi Marco,
Do you want to be the first person to try ArduPilot QuadPlane?
I've put a pre-built firmware here:
http://uav.tridgell.net/Marco/quadplane-test1.px4
It is the same as plane master but with 3 extra modes:
You'll need to set the FLTMODE* parameters as numeric values as your GCS won't understand these values yet.The code assumes a Quad-X frame, with the motors on outputs 5 to 8. The normal plane outputs are assumed to be on 1 to 4.
You can transition between any modes, fixed wing or quadplane. The transition rules are:
You need to set Q_ENABLE to 1 to enable the QuadPlane functionality. All QuadPlane specific parameters start with Q_, so just set Q_* parameters as needed (they are very similar to the normal copter parameters).I've tested it in a simulator and it works nicely, but it has never been tried on a real aircraft. Let me know if you give it a go!
Code is here: https://github.com/tridge/ardupilot/tree/quadplane-wip
Cheers, Tridge
Interesting Tridge, keep me informed about your progress, thanks!
hi Marco,
I am actually working on quadplane support for ArduPilot. I have it flying now in a simulator with the addition of a 'Hover' mode in plane, along with auto-transition. See my quadplane-wip branch.
I don't think it will make the 3.5 plane release (as that is basically done already) but I expect it to be an option in the release after that.
We've been flying a larger quadplane (a senior telemaster) with dual-Pixhawk, and we're building a smaller one based on a Firstar 2000 now, which will run the quadplane code on a single Pixhawk.
Initially I think we'll just have two extra modes for plane. One is 'Hover' which will behave like copter stabilize mode. The other will behave like alt_hold mode for copter. I may even call it alt_hold, although I am a bit afraid people will think it is for conventional fixed wing and be disappointed :)
Later I'd like to integrate it properly into navigation code for precision auto-land.
It is amazing the amount of code that comes out of development for the outback challenge :-)
Cheers, Tridge
Actually there is some start at VTOL code: https://github.com/tridge/ardupilot/tree/quadplane-wip
Actually, my feeling is that PX4(http://dev.px4.io/) shows more clear vision of development.
At the moment the APM Dev Team has no plans to work at their VTOL code, or at least i'm not aware of this thing.
The code in my video is "PX4 VTOL": https://github.com/PX4/Firmware
Great Job! sure this is the next in thing for this community. everyone is waiting for the code to be practical. people like me who are into fixed wing and into multirotor are eagerly waiting for the code.
Really awesome !
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