Copter-3.6.0-rc1 available for beta testing

G’day Brandon,
I’d suggest opening an issue in GitHub and then drop a link into the ArduPilot/ChibiOS gitter channel. Thanks for testing!

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Brandon,

… re ChibiOS issues, it’s probably best to create new threads in this Copter-3.6 forum so we can discuss and investigate before creating an issue. Jumping straight to creating an issue is probably OK but normaly we like to verify the reports before creating issues.

Chris,

Re the analog sonar “flyaway” issue (only possible if sonar has been misconfigured), it’s not resolved in Copter-3.6 I’m afraid.

Sounds good… The new 3.61 flew nice today thank for all your hard work guys!

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LordNeeko,

Re SmartRTL’s behaviour when it runs out of points, yes, it could certainly be improved. Another idea is to automatically increase the “SRTL_ACCURACY” parameter from it’s default of 2m to something larger (like 3m). This would also likely make it suddenly free up a lot of points.

Yet another idea is to improve reporting of the number of unused points to the user and/or allow a failsafe to be triggered as SmartRTL become unusable (i.e. triggers SmartRTL when it runs out of points).

In the end it just comes down to developer effort on the feature to make it better.

In any case, I hope is that with a bit more testing we can increase the default number of points a lot so most people won’t bump into the problem.

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Roland,

Re Pixhawk-mini and D-shot, we will need to complete the port to ChibiOS for this board I think. I’ll check with @tridge on that because he and @bugobliterator are the ones who have the best idea of how the ChibiOS work is coming along.

@alainlive, @Roman_Kirillov,

I’ve just tested landing gear on a Pixhawk1 and it appears to work but of course that doesn’t mean that there’s no problem. let’s take this discussion over to this new thread.

http://www.sendbox.fr/e6d7163948afa863/8_23-04-2018_10-29-48.bin
I went back to 3.5.5 to test the platform works, so maybe a problem in 3.6 rc1?
thank you for your excellent work

Totally understand it’s a first iteration.

So instead of a X per second it’s after you’ve moved a distance of SRTL_ACCURACY? That makes more sense for sure.

If someone has battery or THR or whatever failsafe set to SMART_RTL, and the mode isn’t available, does it automatically transition to RTL already?

Lordneeko,

Re SmartRTL’s saving of points, it saves up to 3 per second but not unless the vehicle has moved at least SRTL_ACCURACY meters from the previous point. So for example, if the vehicle was moving at 10m/s it would save the points at 3.3m intervals. After 50 points are saved it goes back and simplifies them into lines again using that SRTL_ACCURACY… it will replace a string of points with just two end points if all the intermediate points are no more than SRTL_ACCURACY from the line between the end points.

Re the failsafe, Yes, if SmartRTL can’t be used, then regular RTL will trigger instead.

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Ok good stuff. I tried to figure all that out by reading the code, and I did notice the 3hz update rate, but I never could find the code which would revert to RTL if Smart_RTL failed.

However, at your word, I may try to add a few updates based on this information to the wiki.

ChibiOS Testing; Copter 3.6.0-rc1
Flew 7 flights on 450 Quad with MRo Pixracer-R-14. I just loaded the ChibiOS over the prior Nuttx install of 3.6.0 rc-1, with no issues. All parameters left as they were under Nuttx. ( Thanks for the Wiki Guide! ).

No issues in flight; Stab, Alt-Hold, Loiter, Pos-Hold, circle, mission with RTL, and RTL, and SmartRTL on CH7 , plus a low battery failsafe triggering a SmartRTL, and again with a normal RTL Also did an Auto tune. All worked with no issues, same as with the Nuttx 3.6.0-rc1 tests I did this last weekend as mentioned above.

I did not try a Auto tune with the rc-1 NuttX, but I think this Chibios AT was the fastest I have ever had a 3 axis AT complete! Under 3 minutes.

Only issues were Beta MP ( 1.3.56 ) kept reporting “Bad Gyro Health” and “Bad Accl” during Pre-Arm. After Arming I did see " Bad Gyro Health" during flight flash on the HUD portion of MP. There were no such messages in the “Messages” Tab of MP. What was weird is that when disarmed my PC announced the “Bad Gyro” message, but when Armed it showed the message on the HUD screen, but no voice announcement.

I am chalking this up to this as a Beta MP issue as this point. Watching the CMD window in Beta MP, I did see a few “unrecognized messages” or something like that, roll by. But I need to watch that again on a TLog to get exact wording.

It was taking a lot longer to get initial GPS lock under this ChibiOS build. ( MN8 GPS). I saw no such long delays under the NuttX version using the same Beta MP. This occurred over the last 2 days at varying times of the day, so I don’t think it was a sat position/count problem, has 12+ …

I did notice the start up notes seemed shorter in duration, but still the same notes, just sounded a bit shortened. And the ESC beep were almost immediate after plugging in battery. Guessing that is all because of a faster OS.

Other than the slow GPS lock and odd MP behavior, everything else worked well.
Again thanks for all the work everyone put into this .

Joe

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Hi Randy.

I will start testing copter 3.6-rc1 on my 210mm quad.

Thank you very much.

@JoeBreznai auto tune changed for this release, so a faster process is quite believable. (If you redid autotune under the normal PX4 based build you should see the same speed level).

@WickedShell, Thanks for that info on auto tune.
Guess that’s what happens when you compare apples to oranges!
I intend to switch back to NuttX to check the " Bad Gryo" messages. I didn’t see them before when testing 3.6.0 rc1- under NuttX, but I want to confirm that.
Joe

Could not do the ESC Calibration as the Safety Switch could not be invoked.

Thank you all for this good work.

I noticed also that ESC calibration doesn’t works, as the safety switch remains blinking even if we press it.
This happens with the ESC calibration through MP, but also with the “old” method.

Cheers

@rmackay9, after all resetting to default my Pixracer, installed latest beta, everything ok, but when I open Initial Setup… Battery monitor, I have the message Set BAT_AMP_PERVOLT failed.
Don’t know if it’s my fault or beta, but before I was able to setup this correctly.
BattAmpPerVolt

This is simply because the parameter name has changed in 3.6 and Mission Planner has not caught up. Functionally it’s still works as the values you had previous to updating were transferred. If you want to change this value do it from the Full Parameter List BATT_AMP_PERVLT (note the change?)

BETA 3.6.0 rc-1 on Pixracer FENCE Problem.
450 Quad, Mro Pixracer.

Flown 3.6.0 rc-1 Nutxx version for 15 flights and 20+ flights using ChibiOS build, with no issues until today when I tried FENCE settings for 1st time.

Started with ChibiOS build and had issues with Fence not working correctly. Tried using both Beta MP and with Stable MP build, under both NutXX & ChibiOS builds.

Setting up Fence with Polygons in Beta MP ( 1.3.26 build 1.3.6672.5419 ), under ChibiOS, got odd fence boundaries’ after uploading. MP reported "invalid Fence Boundaries’: Fixed by redrawing Boundaries’ as it kept putting “home” point outside fence on setup, and quad wouldn’t arm giving the “Polygon Boundary Invalid” message.

Thinking it might be a Beta MP issue I removed and reinstalled Stable MP ( 1.3.56 build 1.3.6672.30243 ). Re-did Polygon insuring it included my power-up point ( different from Arming location) was within fence area as well just to be sure that wasn’t the issue. Made sure the “Return Point” in Fence was within Boundaries.

Quad just blew past fence.

Loaded NutXX version of 3.6.0 rc-1 and using Fence settings “Alt & Circle”, Quad would hit fence and stop, with 0 set as action. With Fence action set to 1 ( RTL ), quad stopped at both ALT and Distance, but it did NOT “RTL”.

Manually invoking RTL by Ch7, and RTL worked OK in both Nutxx & ChibiOS versions.

Tried many combinations of Beta MP and Stable MP, with NutXX or ChibiOS Beta loaded, with different fence action setting with same results.

Maybe I am doing something wrong, or this an issue with the Beta Software being incompatible with Both MP versions, but I have set Fences before
on stable versions of Software and this same hardware and all worked OK.

Hope this makes sense, but I am out of ideas - and confusing myself - after spending a couple of hours on this this afternoon.

Perhaps someone can check actions the Fence under this Beta, or give me a pointer if I am doing something wrong Or confirm that something is still “off” or out of sync with MP and this Beta software.

Current logs are too large, if needed I can redo flight with shorter time.

I am planning on loading 3.6.0 rc-1 on my Pixhawk 2.4.8 quad later, but weather may prevent fling today.

Thanks,
Joe

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