Hi all,
I had a full battery to run through, and a nice day to fly, so I figured I’d try some more advanced features in Copter. Last Sunday, I tried a Guided mode flight, which ended badly (although I think this was user error), and then after the replacement props arrived I tried a waypoint AUTO mission yesterday. I caught the drone before it hit the ground again, but had nearly identical behavior on both flights, so I think the issue is likely related.
Environment:
- Mission Planner on Linux, v1.3.75 build 1.3.7883.26333
- ArduCopter 4.0.7 on a Hexsoon EDU-650 quad frame (same as in this post, although I’ve now switched to Mauch power monitoring)
- Flying in an area with very good GPS reception (HDOPs are both <1.5 throughout the whole flight)
- Benewake TFMini+ lidar for altitude, good up to 6 or 7 meters outdoors
The aircraft flies exceptionally well in Loiter, even sitting in ground effect. For fun, I held it in Loiter about 3 inches off the ground for about 5 minutes at one point (you can see this in the log) and it didn’t go anywhere.
First event:
Last Sunday, I experimented with Guided mode for the first time. On Mission Planner, I right-clicked on an area within the geofence, selected “Fly Here Alt”, entered an altitude, and hit ‘OK’. Nothing happened; vehicle remained in Loiter at its current position and made no indication it was going to go anywhere. I tried the “Fly Here” option next, assuming it would remain at its current altitude – while it flew to where I clicked on the map, it flew to that point on the ground and came to an abrupt stop. I believe this to be user error on my part…
Log file: https://turnbull.link/drone/exports/scrappy-guided-crash.bin
Second event:
Yesterday, I decided to try a waypoint mission in lieu of Guided mode. I had already flown the aircraft around for a while in Loiter, Poshold, and a few other modes and it was performing well. I created a simple mission (at low altitude, 7ft, but I didn’t want to get too high as the surrounding trees were blocking wind) and uploaded it to the aircraft - reported success. Took off in Loiter, switched into Auto from Mission Planner, and the vehicle did the same thing. It flew directly at the first waypoint, but as if I had set the altitude to zero instead. This time, I had a better reaction and switched back into RTL… event starts at about 2551 seconds in the log.
Log file: https://turnbull.link/drone/exports/scrappy-first-auto.bin
Things I’ve identified/ruled out so far:
- The drone knows exactly its altitude throughout the whole event, and appears to willingly descend. Rangefinder is good the whole time; CTUN.DAlt drops before CTUN.Alt does.
- Power supply is good the whole time. The cube has two of the triple-redundant power supplies connected (POWER1 and servo rail)
- Hardware failure – vehicle remains in positive control of its attitude throughout; no unusual noises were heard during flight, vibes are normal, and the attitude rates are also normal.
I’m pretty sure the first event is an ID-10-T error with the ‘fly here alt’ vs ‘fly here’ buttons, but I can’t figure out what I did wrong with the AUTO mission. Working on compiling SITL now, and will test with the same setup when that’s done…
Thanks in advance!
. Can disregard the ‘first event’ safely… although I can’t replicate the AUTO incident in the sim.
