The second flight was better. Again started in qstabilse and entered qloiter. Attempted to transition into FBWA but the aircraft went into a spiral dive and never recovered.
Luckily the damage wasnt too severe (one of benefits of having as wet ground as you do in Scotland) When reading the docs in more detail we dialed back ARSPD_FBW_MIN and Q_TRANSITION_MS.
Third flight was attempted and we fully managed to transition and land successfully. This was a good overall flight but noted that FBWA had an enormous turning circle.
Forth flight we attempted to autotune the CL84 craft but never fully got there and ran out of lipos.
I think we can manage to get the aircraft flying in fixed wing smoother by modifying roll and pitch angles allowed in the autopilot and with further autotuning.
However the transition is still pretty questionable. Anyone got advice on how to tune the transition so it’s smoother?
I’m not super familiar with whether this is the appropriate place to ask this (this is my first post) - I’m an aerospace undergrad and I’m working on a tiltrotor quadplane really similar to the one you were working on earlier this year. I just wondered if I could ask some questions about the hardware, etc? If email is a better place for that, mine is: nickbain@mit.edu. Let me know if that’d be ok.
To increase your turning angle, you can change the default MIXING_GAIN from 0.5 to 0.7 or higher. Be sure to have sufficient speed after transition before turning with too much angle.
Hi everyone,
I posted a query on Arduplane forum, but here might be a better place.
I would like to try Qplane to build and fly a quadcopter fitted with a fixed wing and a servo mechanism that can tilt all 4 motors at once from up to forward. In forward mode I would like to only use differential thrust for yaw, pitch, roll. I do not want to use any control surfaces. Also, when tilting the rotors I would like yaw and roll to be swapped automatically so that the aircraft can be flown like a normal plane. Is this something covered in Qaudplane? Do I simply connect my motors to ch5/6/7/8, nothing on ch1/2/3/4 and a servo for tilting on ch9 for example?
I hope the above makes sense and someone can help?
In hover, there are two 90mm fans for lift aided by two 40mm fans for roll control. It’s essentially a Quad + configuration. In forward flight, just the rear nozzle tilts forward as if it were simply a motor tilt servo. From what I can tell, the stock tiltrotor implementation in Arduplane can almost handle this configuration, but needs one tweak. In hover, yaw needs to be mapped to a tricopter-style tilt servo (my swivel nozzle accepts a PWM input for yaw vectoring) rather than the typical differential torque setup of the quad frame type.
Can anyone point me to the right place to add this behavior? I can stumble around code but don’t have enough experience with Arduplane to make edits without some guidance.
First question
"Q_ASSIST_SPEED = 0 >>>> because tilted Motors cant help prevent stalling"
If we set Q_ASSIST_SPEED = 10, and we fly in plane mode bellow 10 m/s, the tilt motors will not balance and motor rear help to prevent stall?
Then how can we prevent stall in one quadplane tricopter? Only with ARSPD_FBW_MIN or CRUISE_SPEED?
Does not arduplane contemplate it with the tilt motors balance option and motor rear help in one quadplane tricopter?
Another question:
if we use air sensor then this parameter (FBWA_MIN = 9) does not activate anything, we will have to setup ARSPD_FBW_MIN.
Is it like that?
Ask question:
Why does arduplane talk about FBWA (and not FBWB) on a quadplane when we use an air sensor?
In one quadplane tricopter tilt-rotor, copter CG and plane CG must be the same and I imagine that it must coincide with the CG of the plane.
But in your designs the front motors when they turn from the vertical position <> horizontal position, the plane CG is changed because the 2 engines are advanced or delayed with respect to the CG.
How does this affect transitions and flight?
Have you used any alternative to correct any possible decompensation?
increase distance from the rear engine to the CG
rear engine with less kv and larger diameter propeller
Hi Eric,
I am quite impressed with your project. It is very stable in hover. Did you get guidance on your question? You could take the tiltrotor vectored yaw output and redirect it to your servo.
I am building a ducted fan quad tiltrotor with all 4 fans tilting to, theoretically, go very fast. To date it has made many Qhovers and many crashes.
I have a recent problem which might be related to your question.
All my ducted fans rotate the same direction so I am relying completely on vectored yaw control. It was working well until I was forced to make a compromised ducted fan blade change. Now it takes off and continues to climb in Qhover despite reverting to zero throttle. One of the 4 motors is maxed out (to maintain stability?) forcing the model to climb. Good thing it is tethered. I think it is yaw control forcing 1 motor to max out. The vectored yaw servos are not maxed out.
Do you know if invoking vectored yaw control stops the motors attempting to yaw control as per a conventional quadcopter?
Hey guys, I’m mapping out my first VTOL conversion build; just wondering if any of the experts have an opinion on the Great Planes Rifle, 1 meter plane? It seems like a good candidate for a Y conversion. I’m an avid 3D designer and printer, so I’d make my own wing cowlings for the two new wing-mount motors, cap off the existing center motor with a nose cone.
Just wondering if this might be a good platform?
Specs:
Wingspan: 39.5" (1000mm)
Wing Area: 174 sq in (11.2 sq dm)
Weight Range: 25-28 oz (710-795 g)
Wing Loading: 20.7-23.2 oz sq/ft (63-71 g sq/dm)
Length: 30.5" (775mm)
Thanks in advance, looking forward to my first conversion!
Joe
Would someone kindly confirm or deny if current the following is supported (or not) in arduplane.
Quadplane with 4 motors (typical H fram setup) with only the front 2 tilting. So when in vtol mode is a basically a quadcopter, and when in fixed wing mode it is a twin tracktor (with the back motors not doing anything).
I don’t see anywhere (in documents) that it is not supported, but someone led me to believe so and also everyone here seems to be only doing some triopter variation (with single rare motor), or all for motor tilting.
And bonus question is if assist mode does anything for such setup?
Ohh that is so sweet, thank you. Welldone man and the entire team. Time for another donation
So this quote from an email I got from somone on the matter is BS “QuadTiltRotor is not supported by Ardupilot (APM) and PX4 official, but the official supports Y3/Y6 TiltRotor (support is incomplete, and it can barely flys)”
Hi @tridge , I am a bit confused if the Ardupilot firmware now support quad tiltrotor? I am trying to design a quadplane, where the front two motors tilt for transition (and the rear two motors are purely for VTOL). Although the official Ardupilot website says it’s supported (http://ardupilot.org/plane/docs/guide-tilt-rotor.html), a community member told me that it’s not supported yet. Could you please clarify this?
