MegaPirateNG development

[willumpie82]

i';m following Alex';s MpNg development.

as it seems he is working his way trough the new arduplane 2.9
today a HAL (hardware Abstraction Layer) branch has been made.
http://code.google.com/p/megapirateng/source/list

I checked out the changelog on ardu 2.9, lot of promissing changes.
i';m always on the lookout to try something new :P

i';ll keep a close watch on his progress,...

[willumpie82]

Yesterday alex released 2.8R3 im currently working to get it on my copter and test it. Just a very busy weekend  , not much time with my quad

[Gaza07]

Ive just downloaded 2.8r3 and will install it shortly there were a few errors  I beeive in r2, I will report back with a test flight as soon as ive had a chance 

[willumpie82]

mpng 2.8R4 is beeing prepared for release

snippet from the changelog

--- 2.8 R4
FAILSAFE support for receivers without it

--- 2.8 R3
AHRS_GPS_GAIN disabled
Added support for PPM_SUM on PL1 pin (for CRIUS AIOP v2)

--- 2.8 R2
Added support for FrSky telemetry
updated motor mapping table in the README.txt

[Gaza07]

Thanks willumpie82 for keeping us informed keep up the good work

[willumpie82]

Alex has commited another change, MPNG 2.9 R1 based on AC 2.9-rc4 (no release dough)
well, he is going fast.

I only load these beta';s into my copter without probs to see how it behaves and what changed. I don';t dare to fly it, only official releases.

[Jumpy07]

This was the post from Alex, good work again,
Surprised they haven';t waited for the full release, guess that will mean we will see a quicker 2.9 MPNG final release which is excellent.

Porting of ArduCopter 2.9-rc4 almost done. I';m looking for Beta testers!

The MPNG 2.9 R1 (available via SVN) has new FAILSAFE feature:
If your receiver stops to send signal to the board(i.e: Link loss, Power failure), than FAILSAFE will trigger and throttle channel will set to 950, pitch, roll and yaw will set to 1500. Throttle value of 950 will trigger ArduCopter FAILSAFE (Do not forget to enable it in the Mission Planner)
In case if your receiver has own FS, you must read ArduCopter manual how to adjust you RC to tune FS.

Of course there is lot of enhancements in original AC code:
------------------------------------------------------
Improvements over 2.9-rc3:
1) Smoother transition between manual and auto flight modes (Leonard)
2) bug fix for LAND not actually landing when initiated from failsafe (Randy/Craig)
------------------------------------------------------------------
ArduCopter 2.9-rc3 11-Jan-2013
Improvements over 2.9-rc2:
1) alt hold with sonar improvements - now on by default (Leonard/Randy)
2) performance and memory useage improvements (Tridge/Randy)
3) increase APM1 baro pressure read from 5hz to 8.3hz to improve alt hold (Randy)
4) bug fix: altitude error reported to GCS (Randy)
5) limit inertial nav';s max accel offset correction to 100cm/s/s to speed up recovery after hard impacts (Randy)_
6) moved rate controllers to run after ins read (Tridge/Randy)
------------------------------------------------------------------
ArduCopter 2.9-rc2 31-Dec-2012
Improvements over 2.9-rc1:
1) increased throttle rate gains from 1.0 to 6.0
2) APM1 fix so it works with inertial nav (5hz update rate of baro was beyond the tolerance set in the inav library)
------------------------------------------------------------------
ArduCopter 2.9-rc1 23-Dec-2012
Improvements over 2.8.1:
1) altitude hold improvements:
a)inertial navigation for vertical axis [Randy/Jonathan/Leonard/Jason]
b)accel based throttle controller [Leonard/Randy]
c)accelerometer calibration routine updated to use gauss-newton method [Randy/Tridge/Rolfe Schmidt]
d)parameters to control climb rate:
AUTO_VELZ_MIN, AUTO_VELZ_MAX - allows you to control the maximum climb and descent rates of the autopilot (in cm/s)
PILOT_VELZ_MAX - allows you to control the maximum climb/descent rate when in alt hold or loiter (in cm/s)
2) landing improvements [Leonard/Randy]
LAND_SPEED - allows you to set the landing speed in cm/s
3) camera related improvements:
a) AP_Relay enabled for APM2 and integrated with AP_Camera [Sandro Benigno]
b) camera trigger with channel 7 switch or DO_DIGICAM_CONTROL mission command [Randy]
c) allow yaw override by pilot or with CONDITIONAL_YAW command during missions [Randy]
YAW_OVR_BEHAVE - Controls when autopilot takes back normal control of yaw after pilot overrides (0=after next wp, 1=never)
4) trad heli improvements [Rob]
a) code tested and brought back into the fold (2.8.1 was never released for trad helis)
b) enabled rate controller (previously only used angle controllers)
c) fix to rotor speed controllers - now operates by switching off channel 8
d) allow wider collective pitch range in acro and alt hold modes vs stabilize mode
e) removed angle boost function because it created more problems than it solved
f) bug fix to allow collective pitch to use the entire range of servos
5) mediatek gps driver improvements [Craig]
a) added support for 1.9 firmware
b) bug fix to start-up routine so sbas can be enabled
6) failsafe improvements (both throttle and battery) [Randy/Craig/John Arne Birkeland]
a) RTL will not trigger if your throttle is zero - reduces risk of accidentally invoking RTL if you switch off your receiver before disarming
b) failsafe triggered in unlikely case of a PPM encoder failure
c) bug fix to resolve motors momentarily reducing to zero after failsafe is triggered
7) mpu6k filtering made configurable and default changed to 42hz for copters [Leonard/Tridge]
8) support ppm sum for transmitters with as few as 5 channels [Randy/John Arne Birkeland]
9) acro trainer - copter will return to be generally upright if you release the sticks in acro mode [Leonard]
ACRO_BAL_ROLL, ACRO_BAL_PITCH - controls rate at which roll returns to level
ACRO_TRAINER - 1 to enable the auto-bring-upright feature
10) other changes and bug fixes:
a) allow >45 degrees when in stabilize mode by adding lines like below to APM_Config (compile time option only) [Jason]
#define MAX_INPUT_ROLL_ANGLE 6000 // 60 degrees
#define MAX_INPUT_PITCH_ANGLE 6000 // 60 degrees
b) bug fix to stop RTL from ever climbing to an unreasonable height (i.e. >80m) [Jason]
c) event and state logging [Jason]
d) allow cli to be used over telemetry link [Tridge]
e) bug fix to allow compass accumulate to run when we have spare cpu cycles [Randy]
f) bug fix so do_set_servo command works [Randy]
g) bug fix to PID controller';s so they don';t calculate crazy D term on the first call [Tridge]
h) bug fix to initialise navigation parameter to resolve twitch when entering some navigation modes [Jason]
i) performance improvement to copter leds - use DigitalFastWrite and DigitalFastRead instead of native arduino functions [Randy]
j) removed unused stab_d from roll and pitch controller [Jason]
k) bug fix for guided mode not reaching target altitude if it reaches horizontal target first [Randy]
l) code clean-up, parameter documentation improvements [Randy/Jason/Rob/others]

[willumpie82]

cool! on wich board is alex posting updates. i';m just F5-ing on his g.code project

edit: found it :P
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1382503&page=244

[willumpie82]

Today i installed the latest version of MpNg on my quad, still without props i saw the motors suffer some glitches now and then,
what would be the consequence when I go with props?

http://youtu.be/Dmj7F5b7-Rw

[Gaza07]

I think I would just try it with props on at a low level at first, I wonder if the glitches are caused by vibrations which are made worse by that fact its sitting on the floor, do you get the same glitches if you hold it in your hand ?

[willumpie82]

i tried with props

as you can see, it got quit some pulses on a glitch

http://youtu.be/1nngXi2LIho

I';ll try some logging of the sensors, and try an older version of MPNG

edit, well i should have cleaned up my attic i see

[Gaza07]

Is it always the same esc that is glitching cant really tell from the video ? if it is try swapping a couple of the esc';s over see if the problem moves and check to make sure you have no dry soldered joints 

[willumpie82]

The glitches are motor independand. I';ll try an older version of mpng this week

[willumpie82]

I tried the latest release of 2.8, that solved the problem.
I saw Alex released another revision on svn, i';ll check that one out, test and ';ll report back.

[willumpie82]

Finaly found some time and hooked up my quad to usb and updated the firmware to commit 288, no more glitches!

[willumpie82]

Alex moved the 2.9.1 branch to the beta section of the repo
if you checkout the current trunk you';ll end up with 2.8

for all who aren';t afraid of using a beta release of MPNG,
svn checkout for 2.9.1 Rxx

Code Select Expand

http://megapirateng.googlecode.com/svn/beta

Please take note, Beta means something terrible could happen to you or your copter if anything goes wrong. So please do  some pre-flight checks!

[Gaza07]

Thanks for letting us know and please let us know how you get on with it on the APM2.5 v2.9.1 has been very good