Hard to say…very little wind…~3mph…could be drift or active centering that the code is doing…
I agree with Kelly. It would be great to fence in the soaring area, and have the plane fly a search pattern for thermals. Or possibly add waypoints within the fence where thermals are likely. The plane could work it’s way from waypoint to waypoint continuously searching for thermals along the way.
I have implemented some of Henry’s ideas, I’ll upload some new binaries soon for you guys to test.
For the hunting-within-an-area idea, this can be done now by generating and uploading a waypoint mission and using AUTO mode. Mission Planner can easily create a “search-grid” style mission - see https://ardupilot.org/planner/docs/mission-planner-flight-plan.html#mission-planner-flight-plan .
Not a bad approach Sam, but the preordained lawn mower pattern does not take into account results discovered while hunting, and adjusting the algorithm based on that new information, unless I am somehow misunderstanding your suggestion.
Correct, that would be a much more advanced behaviour.
An example of a commercial/industrial application of this tech, with some proprietary features for this aircraft.
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Very cool. Very fun. Nice air frame.
Kelly
Does anyone have any recommendations for tuning a sailplane beyond the basic tuning instructions? Normally I use the motor only for climbs, but for flying with a FC I expect the plane should be tuned for flying at climb power, a cruise setting and of course gliding. I’m using a FMS Fox to get started. I’ts not a great soaring plane, but it is roomy inside, and made of low cost, forgiving foam. Any recommendations will be appreciated.
Hi all,
I’ve uploaded a new soaring test firmware here for all supported boards. This corresponds to my branch here.
This is based on latest master and is aimed at improving soaring for FPV pilots. It has the following improvements for testing:
- while thermalling the pilot can now command restoring the previous mode by changing from mid to high soaring RC switch position or vice versa. The autopilot will wait for the heading to align with the next auto WP or with the cruise course before actually changing mode.
- when the previous mode was FBWB or CRUISE and the aircraft descends to SOAR_ALT_MIN, the autopilot will now climb back to SOAR_ALT_CUTOFF and begin gliding again (previously it would enter RTL mode).
- the default value of SOAR_MIN_CRSE_S is reduced from 30s to 10s.
- the timeout when waiting for heading alignment to leave LOITER mode is reduced (it is now using the nominal time to complete a circle rather than a fixed 20s).
Test reports and logs would be much appreciated!
Samuel
before to flight on the field, I would like to learn ardusoar with sitl/realflight 8 (I use both together already)
Do I need to load specific parameters ?
Thanks
Adolfo
Hi Adolfo,
I’m not a RealFlight user (yet) but there is a nice glider model available with parameters here . It’s not set up for soaring - I need to get round to that - so you’ll need to follow the wiki for the soaring relevant params.
Hi @Samuel_Tabor, thanks for the improvements!
When the autopilot climb back to SOAR_ALT_CUTOFF and begin gliding again which heading does it choose?
To fully automate the hunting of thermals in an area in FBWB or Cruise as I told you at the time in development it would be useful that the automatism was independent but respecting a maximum radius, so based on SOAR_MAX_RADIUS.
Practical example: if during the ascent with a fixed bow direction it reaches the SOAR_MAX_RADIUS it turns towards HOME, continuing to ascend.
If I’m in FBWB and reaches SOAR_MAX_RADIUS it should make a turn towards HOME, to do this without using RTL it would be enough to put it in “thermal LOITER” as if it had found a thermal and force the exit in the previous fliht mode on the first turn when the bow is towards HOME.
This could automate the search for thermals even in FBWB or Cruise while remaining within a safe range area, and to disable this automatism it would be enough to leave SOAR_MAX_RADIUS at -1.
Now SOAR_MAX_RADIUS only intervenes if it finds a thermal and goes into LOITER.
Hi Marco!
The heading chosen depends on the original mode -
- Auto - heading to next waypoint
- Cruise - the cruise heading
- FBWB - heading to home
I agree that the SOAR_MAX_RADIUS support isn’t great right now. I think to support your example a new flight mode might be the best approach as FBWB isn’t really intended to support automatic navigation in that way. Have you tried using Auto mode with soaring? A simple racetrack pattern with can work quite well for automated thermal hunting in combination with SOAR_MAX_DRIFT.
Yes @Samuel_Tabor, I often use AUTO with SOAR and I know how it works, I did it already at the time of development.
Then leave everything as it is now.
The changes have now been merged into master so they are available for supported boards from https://firmware.ardupilot.org/Plane/latest/ or through Mission Planner / QGroundControl.
Samuel
for newbies on ardusoar as me, do you mean that ardusoar is not any more a specific branch ?
thanks
Actually it has been integrated for a long time now, but new changes can take a while to be merged. So adventurous people can use my branches and firmware builds to test a little earlier.
thanks samuel
I can’t locate var log item in the log file (download through usb) ?
Adolfo
Hi Adolfo,
Do you see the SOAR item? What board are you using?