ArduRover First time user

ArduRover Rover 4.1
1

hey guys I just got all of my equiptment installed on my rover. I calibrated compass and gyros. Calibrating the Radio took me a while. This is a tracked vehicle and traditionally When I move the left stick forward both motors engage forward. Whenever I push the right stick left or right both motors engage opposite to twist the vehicle on a zero axis in the direction I push the right stick. It for some reason took me quite a while to get it to function like this in the RC map. servo output ch1 left throttle ch3 right throttle. my channel map is Rollch1, Throttle ch2, yaw ch3, and pitch ch4. By radio the rover is driving as it originally did in RC form. I added a waypoint and the rover immediately twists away from the waypoint and twists back and forth constantly. any insight would be great

2

Perhaps this is related to a problem thet Randy solved time ago and comes back from time to time.

3

Hi @actionjacksonbn,

I wonder if the autopilot really has Rover-4.1 on it, or does it maybe have 4.2 installed? It’s mostly administrative but if 4.2 is installed I’ll move this to the 4.2 category.

If there’s an onboard log available that would probably help diagnose the issue. It sounds like one of two problems:

  1. Confusion between the RC input and servo output.

    • It is important to use the Motor Test to ensure the motors are spinning in the correct direction.
    • use the RC calibration screen and ensure that the green bars all move in the same direction as the physical sticks with the exception of Pitch which moves in the opposite direction from the green bars
    • leave the PILOT_STEER_TYPE parameter at zero. Many people get confused thinking that because the vehicle uses “skid steering” that the input must also be done using two independent paddles (one to control the left wheel, one to control the right). Most users however want to use one stick for steering and another for throttle… in this case, leave PILOT_STEER_TYPE as zero.

  2. The turn rate controller needs to be tuned.

Hope that helps.

4

So the left stick pushed forward throttle moves up and the right stick moving left or right only controls roll. I’ve found that the roll is backwards. When I try to twist right the roll stick goes left in rc calibration. I feel like I can’t reverse steering without negatively reversing forward throttle atleast just thinking about it like that in my head. I do know that the pilot steer type was adjusted so I’ll go back to that.

5

so I got some slightly different results. Both motors are oriented opposite of each other so the servo output is revered on one motor to make it go forward. To twist the servo outputs go the same direction. At first I made a few changes and tried to run a mission. the mower turned to its proper direction and then immediately started going backwards. I went to motor test and found that they were going backwards. That has since been changed. I got the motors going the proper direction. On RC calibration the throttle goes up when the rover goes up (opposite servo directions). when the right stick is used I push it left to twist left and the roll indicator goes The opposite direction I push the stick. After trying it out like that the first mission attempt the rover went 90 degreed CCW of waypoint one. I moved it back to the starting location and it then turned 180 degrees from the waypoint with the compass facing the opposite direction and swayed on a 0 axis back and forth. I did change the pilot steer type to 0 as well. Should ROLL be what’s actually making my rover twist as opposed to YAW? im going to keep tinkering. Please give any insight. If you need a log please explain how I can obtain that from the software. Thanks