Large rover PID tuning without RC

ArduRover Rover 4.5
1

We are building a large rover (150kg aprrox). It is equipped with cube orange plus and here3+ gps and here+ rtk base as base station.

We followed the setup guide for rover and set every parameter as per our requirements. Rover is set up to do skid turn. We are facing problems in tuning the rover as we do not have a RC. We still set the PID gains by trail and error method but are not satisfied. Rover is wobbling after making a turn and sometimes it cant go straight even when compass heading and target heading are in the same direction. We want to tune it without RC in auto mode if possible.

2

You can use the Rover autotune Lua script (Tuning Process Instructions — Rover documentation) while running in CIRCLE mode.

3

I am actually new to mission planner so this might sound off to you but i just have to use circle mode and run this quick tune script ?

4

That’s right. You’ll need to read the quiktune instruction file (in the link in my previous post) to understand how to configure and run it.

EDIT:
Quiktune requires an RC controller to use, so that won’t work for you.

Are you using a joystick on your GCS to control the vehicle? Then the manual tuning steps would work - using MANUAL and ACRO modes to tune the PID controllers.

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5

Actually, you can use Mission Planner’s Actions tab to arm and change mode and then the Aux Functions tab to control the scripting aux function. Probably not a great way to start tuning from scratch, but it does work. I believe that’s actually how Randy developed it on SITL before moving to real world testing.

The “aux cached” binding is pretty powerful in that way.

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6

We are not using joy sticks. We use to directly run in auto mode after pre-arming checks and setting up the rover.

7

We will now try this first and then let you know also upload a bin file of tuning.

8

Please do your initial testing in a wide open, safe area. Highly recommend you have some safeguards (emergency stop/kill switch) in place that do not rely upon MAVLink alone.

9

Thank you for your support and yes we do have open wide area to test and we do have a motor kill switch.

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10

Is there a reason for skipping any remote control ? - even if just for tuning/setup
150kg sounds like it would need a bit of managing, even if just to move around the shed.
I have one of these - cheap thanks to China
image

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11

The reason for not buying RC is that we are going to run cubepilot via coral dev board. We have established communication and also wrote code on send mavlink packages to cube to control it. We are able to send commands and we can see cube changing its modes and respond. That is why we didn’t buy any RC.

12

Thanks - i understand now.
Apologies i have no idea how to get lua scripts running from mavlink or external computers.
I do know that autotune, and many other LUA related functions are very useful. I’d recommend RC connectivity while you are in setup/config/tuning then move to your dev board/mavlink once tuned. I suspect you’ll hit further customisations required further along that RC may solve for you.

13

I got a RC from one of my friend to tune it. I have loaded the LUA script for quick tune rover but when i put rover in circle mode i am not getting any messages in the messages box, the rover is tuning or not even after 10 sec. I went through with the steps of turning on scr_enable and other parameters.I will try once again.

14

After using LUA script i did not see any change in tuning gains (PID gains). Also i am using skid turning so do i have to also tune steering turn gains ?

Here is the bin file of running in circle mode with LUA script.

15

We are not putting the rover in acro mode and tunning it. Thanks for your support!