Hey all, I’m very new to rc aircrafts and autopilot, just need someone to help guide me. I’ve read through the ardupilot setup and instructions, but I still have a lot of trouble understanding and need help.
I am working on a project where one aspect is to create an autopilot glider. I am trying to use a pixhawk with an rfd 900+, but I don’t know how to make the servos function and I am very lost.
If someone could help me out, that would be great!
So far, I have done the initial setup for the pixhawk, and the mandatory hardware configuration, but I am lost where to go from here. another problem I am having is not being able to get a gps fix…
I am trying to have a glider with no propulsion, just servos. So when it is released from a certain spot, it will glide its way to a target.
If anyone can help me, I would gladly appreciate it!
What you are trying to accomplish is not directly supported by ArduPilot. So it will not likely be easy for a beginner to accomplish.
However, you’ve come to the right place for help! Lots of people on this forum enjoy volunteering their time to help beginners like yourself. So welcome to the community.
Here’s a good “first step” for you: See if you can get FBWA mode working. (I think you won’t need a motor for this.) Here’s a relevant page from the documentation explaining what I mean: http://ardupilot.org/plane/docs/starting-up-and-calibrating-arduplane.html When the aircraft is successfully in FBWA mode, you should see behavior like the video for your ailerons and other control surfaces. (of course you might not have a v-tail setup.)
If you are committed to using ArduPilot for your glider implementation, check out this forum post where someone was asking a similar question: Autonomous Gliding Searching this forum may provide other similar threads.
Servos must be set up by setting up their parameters. For channel 1’s output, you will need to set SERVO1_FUNCTION, its minimum and maximum values, and if it is reversed.
That servo will behave differently depending on the mode it is in. For manual mode, ailerons, rudder, elevator, elevons, etc will all respond to remote controller inputs (from your transmitter, not necessarily the RFD900X that is probably providing telemetry). The RCMAP parameters will help you assign an output channel from your transmitter so that it affects the right servos.
In FBWA mode, the servos are automatically controlled to try to level the wings and pitch so that the plane flies straight. Control inputs are now bank demands (instead of directly passing through to the servos).
To enable servo outputs at all, you may need to press/hold the safety switch on a HERE GNSS receiver or change BRD_SAFETYENABLE. Throttle output will not be given until the plane is armed, but it sounds like you won’t have that problem with that.
Are you outside when you are trying to receive a GPS fix?
Today i think i was able to connect to fbwa mode where the servos were moving to keep the plane level (tested by just turning plane in yaw, pitch, roll). And I was able to control them manually as well, but the fbwa mode was turned on automatically when I went outside to try and get gps signals. I will try to figure out more but them you!
Also, the autonomous gliding link is exactly what I’m looking for, will ask in that post to see if they figured it out!