@Hellicon wrote:

Hi Ardupilot community,

I’m in the beginning stages of a fairly ambitious project to replace very expensive manned aircraft with a VTOL drone using a custom 5 Camera rig to survey large areas for humanitarian purposes.

The goal is to use the drone to capture a combination of Oblique (North, East, South, West) and Nadir images during a single pass to maximize the operational efficiency of the drone.

We’ve done testing and found that drones that geo-tag the images (Such as the Phantom 4 or Mavic 2) generally do a great job after we process the images & metadata with Something like PIX4D.

I’m hoping I can replicate that process, but the sensor I’ve chosen doesn’t geo-tag the images with either the Lat/Long or camera orientation. I’ve seen several guides on how to geo-tag images from a single camera. (Generally facing strait down) but I’m unaware of a way that I can easily tag all of the images consistently.

I hope this topic found the right forum, if not, any direction to a good source of information would certainly be appreciated.

EDIT: I wanted to add that the Oblique images are captured at a 45 degree angle.

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@TTGold wrote:

I have a copter that has a PixRacer running 3.6.8 and has been running great for some time. I originally had a FrSky X4SB RX and was using the FrSky port on the pixracer to pass telemetry to the RX and everything worked great. I decided to upgrade to the new R9M and the R9Slim+ and thought originally it would be a direct drop replacement. After installing and finding out that the Telemetry was not passing I started to search the internet for help. Others claim to have great success with other FC other claim they did have a problem until the firmware on in BetaFlight or others have been fixed. What I am finding is that when the R9Slim is powered up with the PixRacer the telemtry com fails to pass anything. But if I boot the PixRacer first and the wait for it to completely load then power the RX telemtry starts to flow. I reached out to frsky and they claim it is the FC that has the problem not the RX because others are working. Is there a chance to add a delay to eliminate a timeout that must be happening when the S-Port on the R9 RX is used to pass telemetry?

Edit - Just one more thing I did purchase a " FrSky Yaapu Telemetry Converter" to see if it was just a problem with the FrSky Serial4 on the PixRacer. Using the converter I plugged it into Telem2 and set the protocol to 10 and also found the same issue. A race to recognize the S-Port happening. While on Telem2 again if I boot the PixRacer completely first then power the RX telemtry starts to flow on Serial2.

Thanks again for all you awesome work…

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@Kari wrote:

Hi,
I want to build an acro quad copter, my flight controller is pixhawk 2, I do not know what is the limits of this flight controller?
Max pitch rate?
Max accelerations ?
Max altitude ?
Thanks

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@Adam_Kelly wrote:

I haven’t used antenna tracking before so I’m hoping someone can tell me if this specific use case is possible. I want to build an antenna tracker to point at specific locations, rather than at a moving drone. Basically the tracker will be used to point a directional 3G antenna at cell tower locations when I move from one static location to another. I know where each cell tower is that will provide me the best reception, so rather than manually aiming it when I stop at each place I’m hoping the antenna tracker can just be made to point at the tower.

I welcome your thoughts!

Cheers,

Adam

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@jhw84 wrote:

Hello,

We are in the process of tuning a large (1.4m/T-MOTOR U10 II KV100/28x8.4 propellor) X8 multicopter (25kg), and are looking for some advice on this scary process. So far we have done a couple of flights trying to get the response to inputs to be solid, before moving on to loiter. We have tested in stabilize but mostly in alt hold, as the altitude controller appears to work very well, greatly simplifying the process. The included log file contains several short flights in calm weather, where we found the copter to be flyable, but responding overly sensitive to pitch/roll commands. The copter seems to be too responsive (it feels like roll/pitch stick inputs are limited to literally milimeters). Also, when looking at Pitch vs. DesPitch in the logs the controller frequently overshoots. At the end of the file a crash occurs during take-off, but it looks like this is due to pilot error (judging by RCIN.C2), before the excessive pitch input we did not find any abnormalities in the log.

Below we include some screenshots, movies, and descriptions of specific events that we think give a good indication of how the drone behaved. The entire log-file is also included. We’re looking for any tips or suggestions on how to improve the handling of this copter, or any other issues that we did not see that might be there. One of the issues we know that exists is the compass, for future flights we will mount the Here+ and Here2 modules that we use further away from the (high current) electronics in an attempt to mitigate this issue.

We started out with stock PID values, and all we have tried so far is to reduce the sensitivity to control inputs by reducing the roll/pitch sensitivity slider in the Basic Tuning tab. It appears this slider sets the rate roll/pitch kP and kI values directly. This is the only parameter that was changed between the flights, and we include the value for the events below.

We’re looking for any help based on the data below to help us tune this copter. We also have some specific questions:

• Did we do right to try to improve control by decreasing the roll/pitch sensitivity parameter in Mission planner? Unfortunately, we did not have a chance to play with other settings before the crash occurred.
• We are also wondering if we should have added some weight to the copter (there was no payload now, total weight just under 25kg).
• Since the drone is so sensitive to rc inputs, does it make sense to lower the maximum lean angles that can be commanded by the pilot and/or change ATC_INPUT_TC?

Below are some pitch/despitch plots, and also some videos which show of some of the behaviour of the drone.

• Roll/Pitch sensitivity = 0.114. Below we show the pitch vs. DesiredPitch at constant altitude, 1m above ground (alt hold), the full log file is included with this post. We often frequent slowly damping oscillations on pitch and roll, and are curious what is the best approach to improve the tuning on this.
  

  Pasted Graphic 3.png2336x570 208 KB
  
  video: https://drive.google.com/open?id=19FTscfyEoKT8HKHqDjAekj9XGVPCbc17

• Similar conditions, except Roll/Pitch sensitivity = 0.093. and higher from the ground ~3m above ground (alt hold), shows similar behaviour although maybe (?) a little bit less severe due to reduced ground effects?
  

  Pasted Graphic 4.png2346x606 228 KB
  
  Video: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1zB5s4mEZtTqF4BJU3f-WQCnPC3GFxl6f

• In the same flight as above (same Roll/Pitch sensitivity as well), we briefly switched mode to loiter. It was immediately obvious that the drone started to oscillate so we quickly switched back to alt-hold where we see it takes again a few oscillations before the drone stabilizes again. I guess this is a good lesson to first tune roll/pitch PID before going to the automatic modes.
  

  Pasted Graphic 5.png2358x616 101 KB
  
  Video: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1OcWS2pBN37fOv-IOEaOvuAcvFsmS-lnQ

• After the brief loiter experiment we descent to land in alt-hold, where the drone experiences a choppy ride. We believe due to propwash + badly tuned PIDs.
  

  Pasted Graphic 1.png2352x598 96.6 KB
  
  Video: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1oKxlOb42YmNM3VyLvMFGGtpBmfjT1H5z

• This behaviour persists to a lesser extent even at very low rates of descent.
  

  Pasted Graphic.png2348x608 120 KB
  

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@Harald wrote:

Hello, perhaps somebody can explain once, when one has to use Frame Type V instead of X.
My understanding so far is, that you use V when the front arms are more angled then the back arms (same armlength) on a quadcopter (i.e. TBS discovery pro). But I have seen now that the default frame type for a 3DR IRIS+ is V although the front angle is the same as the back angle.

Thanks for clarification. It would be also good to include that in the documentation

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@Ghifari_Hanif wrote:

Hi everyone,

I want to ask something, how can one program a Fixed Wing UAV to directly search for a specified Colored object and then loiter at that object after a mapping mission??? (Monitoring and Mapping Task in a single mission)

Thank you in advance

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@ishmaelfarai wrote:

Hi Guys,

Still busy with my quad plane build project, wanted to find out if anyone has any knowledge of configuring in mission planner propellers to be locked at a certain angle after shifting from VTOL to fixed-wing flight mode in order to reduce drag forces? I am using PX4 cube autopilot.

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@FPV_BOB wrote:

So I’m new at this, however I noticed that there is a huge price difference between these two products. Of course there are also a difference in the quality.

My plan is to make a good fpv fixed wing platform and my concern is if the radiolink version is going to be reliable enough compared to the HolyBro version? Both of them got issues and that is just a part of the experimentation, so my question is really, is the HolyBro worth the extra $150?

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@Raziel wrote:

Hello there,

So I am new on the forum, I will try to respect the use, please excuse me if I do not.

I started a project of self-controled boat a few weeks ago and the fact is I have what I call a stupid problem I cannot solve. That is why I ask for your help.

Here are the data of my work :

• 2 brushless motors boat
• Radiolink equipment = Pixhawk and T8FB radio
• telemetry 433Mhz linked to my computer
• Mission Planner as ground station

I read a lot and check videos too on the Pixhawk. I think I know what I need to know and the first settings / configuration and cabling.

I set the Pixhawk, ARDUROVER mode, I did the calibrations of the compass, the radio, all is OK.
The first work was done directly plugged to the computer with the USB cable.
The radio receiver is put in S-Bus mode, channels are :
1 = AIL
2 = ELE
3 = THR
4 = RUD

1 and 2 are the right stick.
3 and 4 the left one.
In the standard use of the boat, right motor is on channel 2 and left motor on channel 3.

Then I set the servo outputs :
1 = disable
2 = right motor
3 = left motor
4 = disable
5 = RCIN 5
6 = disable
7 = disable
8 = RCIN 8

I plugged the whole components together with a DC lab power supply 12V.
First ESC is put in n.2 Main out, Second ESC in n.3 out.
I also put a small servo in n.5 out and a RC swith in n.8 out.

Then I put the telemetry to control the Pix from the boat on my computer and Mission planner.

Here is the issue.

I start the Pix, all is OK. I launch MP on the computer and connect the PIX. Still OK.

I arm the Pix, still ok. The ESC’s start, beeping is correct. I perform motor test, still OK.

Motor testing is still OK. But, I have no control on the motors with the radio. What is wrong?
On all videos I saw, it is possible to control the RC boat / plane / quadri with the radio before making a plan.

I have perform a lot of tests. The only thing I see important, if I put RCIN 2 and RCIN 3 in place of left or right motor in the servo output settings, I can control the motors with the radio but motor test in MP fails.

Then I have other question. The servo and RC swith does not work too. I read in the PIX doc I should put an UBEC 5V power in the AUX OUT so that current will make servo and other components work. But in a video I saw there was told not to put 2 power entries inside the PIX (power module + BEC or UBEC).
What about this fact? How can I make my components work?

If I put component directly on channel 5 and 8 of my receiver it makes the PIX disarmed…

I searched solutions on the Internet, but nothing is clear, I think it is time for me to talk about with some people to have advices.

Thank you in advance for your help!
Lud.

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@ardupilot.td wrote:

I want to build a ~2.5 kg quad with 14 inch props. I’m currently thinking to use 16mm diameter (1mm wall thinkness) aluminum round tubes. Is there anyone who could give me some recommendations/advice whether the size is big enough (I only find motor boat props when I try to google that and I would be very happy to get some reports about first hand experience)?

I would also interested if a BLHeli32 ESC works togtheter with an 700kV motor (I found a lot of different opinions but they are all some years old.)?

Parts:

• T-Motor U3
• T-Motor CF 14" 4.8 props
• T-Motor F55A pro BLHeli32 4in1 ESC
• 12.000 mAh 3S lipo
• mRo X2.1 autopilot

Thank you ver much!
I could report about the build results if someone is interested…

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@bigfinger wrote:

anyone point me in the direction of an open source or free to use electrical wiring drawing program?

looking to layout the wiring for my rover and boat so I can send the design to a friend and he can replicate it.

at the moment I’m using lucidchard which has the benefit of me being able to drop images in there of the pixhawk etc… but I keep hitting its max item limit before I get finished.

thanks
Oli

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@Elpidoforos_Anastasi wrote:

Hello we are from a school and we are going to use a weather balloon and attach the Pixhawk to send data to our ground station via 2.4 video and osd we have not controls or motors below is the setup i have , how can we arm the pixhauwk so we can get the data ? could you please help ?

60238202_574614739692715_1347092393328902144_n.jpg540x960 83.3 KB

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@MerkaTony wrote:

It seems i am encountering a high Z vibration on a 1400mm Hexacopter with 22inch props.
https://plot.dron.ee/BDzB
I have been trying to figure out solutions to solve, since as its noticable that three minutes into the flight clip0 jumps to 40 and 5 minutes in, increases to 900+
Clip1, 5 minutes in jumps to 32 and clip2 jumps to 300+
At the same time X-Y vibes peak at 30 while Z goes crazy and accelZ is pretty close to max values in many occasions.
Is there some “soft” dampening solution, since frame has been checked over and over for flex and vibrations.
The whole issue causes the HEXA to start rolling (5minutes in) at extreme angles and after about a minute it recovers and starts flight normally again.
Any assistance would be appreciated

(Upon investigation under the Cube, i found that the actual base plate has flex and in the meantime i will switch it with a 2.5mm carbon to verify if this will lower the issue, besides this structural fix, since flex is almost zero for the size, would ins_accel filtering help?)

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@R_Hodges wrote:

Good afternoon all,

I am using a Pixhawk 2 cube in conjunction with a vision system to develop some vision based flight control.

Correlating attitude information from the Pixhawk with the vision information is critical.

What breaks this correlation is the settling time of the attitude measurements from the Pixhawk. It seems to be over 10 seconds!

When stepping the attitude of the airframe (Pixhawk and camera together) while the camera focuses on a point on the ceiling, the airframe pivots quickly on a rig and hits hard stops in each direction. I am pivoting this by hand.

The vision system has NO filtering, and is therefore a good source of attitude truth (ok - it swings in the opposite direction to the roll data, but the response from the vision is what I would expect as I hit the hard stops. It stabilises instantly).

Can someone please let me know how I can reduce the settling time of the roll measurements from the Pixhawk. The 10 seconds+ is really affecting my control system!

I am running Copter 3.6.1

I’m not certain if these attachments are uploading correctly, but attached is an image of the graphed data, and the data in csv format

Thanks in advance!

Robin

pixhawk_and_camera_roll_data.txt (233.6 KB)

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@Max_Drougge wrote:

Hello.
I’m building a heliquad and I’m using a Pixhawk cube with the latest ArduCopter software. I’m facing quite a weird problem with the YAW. The heliquads pitch mechanism differs slighly from one another and thus I’ve had to separately set the max/min/trim differently on all servos.

So. I’ve done a sort of maiden flight which went fairly well. The pitch/roll/collective pitch all seem to work well. The problem is that, at “hover” collective pitch the YAW hardly gives any output. The servos hardly move at all around the point where the heliquad is hovering. I’m having a built in slow left-yaw movement which I cannot parry and the autopilot cant correct it because it gives no YAW output at hover.

However, they do move quite a bit if I pull up the collective pitch to 100 % as well as below 40 % collective pitch.

Could my max/min/trim have something to do with this?

Any help would be greatly appreciated

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@smilie wrote:

GPS, I2C does no have Power, because the Enable Pin for VDD_5V_Periph is low.
I have opened the Cube and measured this line.
I make a compare to the other Enable-Pins.

What is the reason for this?

Any Ideas?

The System i have is chibios and arduplane 3.4.9 or so.
The Cube 2.1 is a new one.

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@verAPPelt wrote:

Hi everyone!
I followed those steps (and ALL of it ) (http://ardupilot.org/dev/docs/apmcopter-adding-a-new-flight-mode.html) to add a new flight mode. In order to do this I built and uploaded the ‘ardupilot’ on my pixracer. Now my problem: Mission Planner does not show this new flight mode so it is not possible to choose it. I saw some questions about this in this forum but none of this was completely answered…
I hope to get a solution
Have a nice evening!

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@Copter_Newbie wrote:

Hey all,

do you guys have experience with APD Electronic Speed Controllers? Based on their comments on the webpage, they should have good products, designed to MIL-STD and also DO standards?

Are this ESC’s working out of the box with DShot?

Is it still necessary to remap to AUX ports?

Are there any plans for the ProShot protocol?

Thanks!

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@Nolan_Reep wrote:

My team and I are running Copter 3.7.0-dev on Pixhawk 2.1 Cube Black and an OCTO-X frame. We have observed several issues when implementing a Geofence in MissionPlanner. Two different warnings show up upon booting: “fence requires position” and occasionally “Geofence breach” and continue to show even after all sensors and EKFs appear to be settled (i.e. both warnings will show while the OCTO is on the ground in an open field).

For background, the OCTO is using the Here+ GPS/Compass & RTK system (running ublox FW version 1.40) and has very good HDOP (~0.6-0.7) and visible sats numbers (19-24). In addition, the EKF is given time to completely settle as well. These warnings prevent arming and seem to occur particularly when “old” geofence and polygons files were used to draw/upload geofence boundary. Switching the geofence type from “polygon and altitude” to “circle and altitude” does not stop the flags leading us to believe the input file isn’t the problem by itself. Defining a new geofence before every flight wouldn’t be the worst thing, but it doesn’t work everytime. The following process seems to give the best results (it’s worked twice).

Wipe geofence and mission–>reboot pixhawk–>reboot mission planner–>reconnect and reboot pixhawk–>redefine geofence.

It is unclear if this actually works or we just got lucky and managed to change something on accident along the way. Any help or insight anyone could give would be much appreciated. I can attach logs if that would help. And, of course, if I’m in the wrong place please let me know. Thank you in advance.

Best!

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