Comments

• 

  Gary McCray February 2, 2014 at 6:33pm

  Short follow up:

  Following setting RC3_TRIM to 1500 I have not had the problematic fail into full reverse that I was getting before, so it looks like whatever it is doing is preventing that and I have tried both turning the transmitter back off and on as well as running it hard enough to reset the PX4 (which disarms it).

  Putting the PX4 on a Kyosho Zeal mounted sub-platform has also helped a lot with vibration and shocks and integrity.

  I feel it is now working well enough for me to at least try some learn and auto mode trials.

  I will report back.

  I have learned that multi-path in my immediate neighborhood (house and lots of 100' pine trees close at hand) plays havoc with the GPS so I will try this at our community colleges wide open area.

  Best Regards,

  Gary
• 

  Gary McCray February 2, 2014 at 11:12am

  Hi Again Thomas,

  Actually I am hooked up now and my Rover is definitely not responding as you described.

  I brought it up on mission planner with the transmitter off and it showed manual mode.

  I turned on the transmitter and it still showed manual mode (but did permit switching to learn and auto correctly)

  Set it back to manual and turned transmitter off and it still shows manual mode.

  This is also reflected in the Mission Planner status page looking at the "mode" value.

  Under no circumstances did it go to "Hold" mode.

  I am using the latest stable APMrover2 code.

  When I shut the transmitter off the throttle does stay at 1502 and turning it back on does (except for the small transmitter requirement to hold the self centering elevator now throttle stick low when starting blip in reverse) seem to work OK.

  Actually turning the transmitter off while it is in Auto mode places it in Hold mode, but in manual or learning it just stays in the mode it was in.

  Also when you turn the transmitter back on the Auto switch position is now always Hold mode.

  Manual and learn switch correctly, but now auto is always Hold.

  The only way to get it back correct is to remove power to the PX4 (or Vehicle) and power it back up again.

  I suspect this is not the desired outcome.

  Best Regards,

  Gary

  Best Regards,

  Gary
• 

  Gary McCray February 2, 2014 at 10:33am

  Hi Thomas, Thank You.

  That actually improves the situation for center throttle systems a lot. A transmitter signal loss automatically going to default means that at least the go full reverse problem can be eliminated most situations.

  It is however listed as an official mode and I saw a very recent reference of Tridge switching to it with his transmitter when the Rover was about to do something inappropriate.

  I will add the information about automatically going to hold mode if RC reception is lost to the wiki where the other mode information is.

  Once it has automatically gone to hold mode (how do you get it back out of it) or does it just go out of Hold mode when RC reception is reacquired? 

  My experience might have been the reult of it going into Hold mode because of a temporary loss of RC (before I had correctly set RC3_TRIM to 1502) so it would have gone to minimum PWM which would have resulted in full reverse.

  My experience so far has been that no mode switching or transmitter reconnecting would get it back from that mode and only removing the battery would get it back from that mode and only disconnecting the trucks battery had any effect.

  In any case if you would let me know what is necessary when it has automatically gone to hold mode to get it back out of it I would appreciate it.

  Best Regards,

  Gary
• Admin

  Thomas J Coyle III February 2, 2014 at 5:05am

  @ Gary,

  I know that the HOLD mode is where the rover will stop or not move if there is a loss of the R/C transmitter signal. If you boot your APM up without your transmitter on, you will see the HOLD mode appear in both the MP and AMP Planner 2.0 HUDs instead of the MANUAL mode. I believe that the APM will go into the HOLD Mode if there is a loss of the R/C signal during operation.

  As far as the GUIDED mode goes, this is an Arducopter mode that may not have been implemented in the ArduRover2 code. We have mainly concentrated on the MANUAL, LEARNING, STEERING, and AUTO modes at the moment as those are the basic modes to get a rover going.

  @Bruce,

  You need to provide a list of your parameter settings to see if we can help you out. What version of the code are you using?

  Regards,

  TCIII ArduRover2 Developer
• Bruce D. Sidlinger February 1, 2014 at 9:28pm

  Well, the cool one is Steering Mode, I want to go try that!

  (My APM 2.0 Axial Wraith drives like a drunken sailor with no destination in mind in Auto so I need a break before further struggling with that problem.)
• 

  Gary McCray February 1, 2014 at 9:23pm

  At this point Bruce I am very uncertain of their veracity, at least Hold and Guided mode, but Learning mode was straight from the release and should work as advertised.

  So your results are most definitely (Not Guaranteed).

  They will be revised over the next couple of days if needed.
• Bruce D. Sidlinger February 1, 2014 at 9:20pm

  Very helpful, at least to me. These Rover mode descriptions are not readily available, as far as I could tell. Thanks!
• 

  Gary McCray February 1, 2014 at 8:59pm

  Hi Tom,

  I have taken my best shot at adding what I imagine Guided and Hold mode to be to the primary configuration page (along with an actual description of Steering mode from Tridges 2.40 release notes) to the wiki here:

  http://rover.ardupilot.com/wiki/configuration-2/#Assign_Modes

  I'd appreciate it if you would look it over and see if that coincides with your understanding and let me know any discrepancies or anything I need to add.

  I also still think adding another dedicated 2 or better possibly 3 position switch / channel to the mix rather than having to do sub optimal 2/3 position switch mode thing, but I think that for our other vehicle types as well.

  Best Regards,

  Gary
• 

  Gary McCray February 1, 2014 at 7:49pm

  Hi Tom,

  Could you explain Hold mode to me.

  I now have my channel 3 throttle RC trim set to 1502 (middle) (Per Tridges suggestion) but that will only do me any good if I could actually get to Hold which uses the RC trim setting.

  It is listed as a mode in the wiki but there is no explanation of it, I would like to correct that.

  I would also like to use that but with only a 3 mode switch (and detesting 6 mode switching) I would prefer to have a dedicated 2 position switch I could assign to forcing hold mode (I think).

  Otherwise it seems impossible to have the minimum necessary functions Manual, Learn and Auto to be able to set up and execute automatic runs. 

  It seems Manual, Learn and Auto are also the only modes the wiki currently actually describes.

  So if you could give me a brief description of Hold, Steering and Guided that would be very much appreciated or point me to where in the Wiki they are described.

  Clearly a bit of Wiki work is needed and I will be happy to do.

  But it also seems that the option of being able to assign Hold to a dedicated channel could be a very good thing.

  Best Regards,

  Gary
• Admin

  Thomas J Coyle III January 27, 2014 at 8:40am

  @Jon-Paul,

  The Pixhawk is a magnitude faster than the Atmel 2560 and has a hardware FPU which will make computational processing, such as required by a Kalman Filter, a reality in relation to the limited processing power of the 2560.

  The use of a Kalman Filter can help mitigate some of the ambiguity in positional knowledge and heading when there are glitches in the GPS data or compass heading.

  @Bot_Thoughts,

  It will be good to be up against the serious competition that you represent:-)

  I suspect that there will be only 5 serious challengers or less in the Peloton Class when the smoke clears after the first heat!

  Regards,

  TCIII