How to ensure flying in straight lines (without yawing)?

This question could alternatively be posed as: how to yaw during loiter only?


For verification purposes, I am trying to fly a square box in straight lines, repeatedly. It is important that the drone always “looks in the direction it is moving” until it reaches its waypoint.

Currently, when it goes from loiter to straight line flight, it will adjust its heading in flight, and only have the right heading halfway the line. (i.e. it will start moving and yawing at the same time).

I want to avoid that. I would like to have the drone turn its direction/heading while it is hovering, and not while it is flying in a straight line. If required, let me know and I can upload a logfile. You can also reproduce this error in MissionPlanner simulation.

Gear:

  • Cube Pilot with an CubeOrange
  • Foxtech hover 1

Any advice on settings or tricks is appreciated. Currently the plan is to fly straight lines and then yaw the drone manually, and then fly off again. That isn’t as systematic as I would like to have it, of course.

Kind regards,

Erik

It sounds like your tune is extremely conservative based on the acceleration behavior and slow yaw.

However, since you indicate very limited tuning time, perhaps a mission with CONDITION_YAW and CONDITION_DELAY commands could be of use. This one flies a rectangular pattern in cardinal directions (each waypoint is due S/W/N of the previous). CONDITION_YAW forces a heading change, and CONDITION_DELAY allows for enough time to achieve the desired heading prior to continuing on the trajectory.

image

EDIT: (a bit of testing in SITL shows that CONDITION_DELAY may be unnecessary)

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Hi Yuri,

Thank you for looking into it, that is very insightful!

KR,

Erik