Typhoon H 480 PX4 v1.10 (Stability issues ;-)

[Pöllö]

I like what I see here very much.
Since I do not speak English, I translate everything with the DeepL translation program.
So I have the possibility to understand something and to communicate with you.

Hi, that's very nice to hear! If there is something you would like to know or if it feels that something gets lost in translation, please feel free to ask! ;-)

 

[Pöllö]

Testing a mission with a QGroundcontrol-generated survey pattern for mapping:

Flight Review

3D View - Flight Review

 

[h-elsner]

More flight modes, more fun. My first test with new settings:

Made with fix CGO3+ minus cover:


br HE

 

[h-elsner]

Typhoon Thunderbird fun after some tuning. Setting MC_RATT_TH from 0.80 to 0.60 will result in more smoother rolls in Rattitude mode.

Also you should set the following parameter to get back capability that Typhoon H had:
MPC_Z_VEL_MAX_DN from 1.000 to 3.000m/s,
MPC_Z_VEL_MAX_Up from 3.0 to 6.0m/s.

br HE

 

[Enrico Jorysch]

The Thunderbird feels very comfortable on my airfield.
Biting wind and cold fingers... ...but still calibrates the compass...
and off to the air with the bird.

He's cool to fly... I'm gonna adjust the rate of climb and descent a little bit more.
Landing is smooth as butter... also RTH works very well.

I am looking forward to the firmware update... always these legs in the picture
The first few minutes were a getting used to... but it already feels good.

The CGO3+ tilts like already tested with the arms by about 30 degrees after
downstairs and then stops there.

I am happy to be part of this exciting project.

Best regards, Enrico

 

[Pöllö]

Typhoon Thunderbird fun after some tuning. Setting MC_RATT_TH from 0.80 to 0.60 will result in more smoother rolls in Rattitude mode.

Also you should set the following parameter to get back capability that Typhoon H had:
MPC_Z_VEL_MAX_DN from 1.000 to 3.000m/s,
MPC_Z_VEL_MAX_Up from 3.0 to 6.0m/s.

br HE

Wow! That looks so smooth! I've gotta try these out myself too and update these to the .param file. The weather has been just so poor this weekend that it was no flying for me. The upgraded FW needs more testing, although everything seems to be working, after only two successful flights I am not yet feeling confident enough releasing it. Soon... ;-)

 

[Pöllö]

The Thunderbird feels very comfortable on my airfield.
Biting wind and cold fingers... ...but still calibrates the compass...
and off to the air with the bird.

He's cool to fly... I'm gonna adjust the rate of climb and descent a little bit more.
Landing is smooth as butter... also RTH works very well.

I am looking forward to the firmware update... always these legs in the picture
The first few minutes were a getting used to... but it already feels good.

The CGO3+ tilts like already tested with the arms by about 30 degrees after
downstairs and then stops there.

I am happy to be part of this exciting project.

Best regards, Enrico

Hi Enrico,

Nice to hear and see that you like the Thunderbird as well as being part of developing it! ;-) The firmware upgrade will be there as soon as I get few more test flights for it. ;-)

The CGO3+ issues you have, need to be fixed. When you arm the drone and the gimbal tilts to 30 degrees, it tells me that the CGO3+ initialization pulse was sent by the bootloader OK and the Thunderbird is producing proper PWM signal to drive the camera. What might be wrong, is your channel mapping. The PX4's mapping is a bit difficult, the following settings affect how the payload mount (camera in Thunderbird) is driven. Please verify the following settings, and if these do not resolve it, please send me your parameter file and I'll test it with my drones. ;-)

Br,

Toni

 

[Enrico Jorysch]

Thanks, Toni,

I've done the stabling according to your instructions. Now the CGO3+ stays nice and horizontal and doesn't swing down 30 degrees by itself.

Of course it would be a big step forward to be able to tilt and pan the camera... but one thing at a time.

Thanks for your help.

 

[h-elsner]

Tahnks again for this explanation. The only paramaeter that I have hat to change (compared to previous settings) was MNT_MAN_PITCH from Disable to AUX1. After that the nick of the cam is working when drone is armed.
The only thing that I have observed: The cam goes down smooth fom 0 to -90° and goes up smooth from -90° to -45° and then very fast to 0.

Not sure if that a single case or persistent, it's raining outside and I need GPS position. I will set back parameter COM_ARM_WO_GPS to indoor testing and do more tests.

br HE

 

[Pöllö]

Hi h-elsner and Enrico,

Nice to hear that you got the gimbal tilt working! ;-) That slightly nonlinear response is there, but one workaround for it would be scaling that slider range a little, as that "quick retraction" happens only when the slider is cranked all the way up. I'll put it to my "backlog"... ;-)

Br,

TR

 

[h-elsner]

First of all, it is a minor problem. If you need a full-blown video/photo drone, keep the stock H480. It is good for that with 360° cam and all the automatic stuff. Thunderbird can tilt the cam - good for most needs.

The current behaviour is more complex. After power on the cam goes to 0°, means it looks straight forward. If you set the slider down fast the cam tilts smooth down. Slider up fast: it starts to go smooth up and then "jumps" suddenly to 0°.
If turn the slider smooth up, the cam will also go smooth up to ~+30° and at the very end goes back to 0°. Let the cam showing up a little bit is a nice feature, the H480 also has with switch "Tilt mode". At Thunderbird it is always present.
I have the feeling, that overrun very fast this "threshold" between +30° and 0° results in this "quick retraction". As I said, not really a problem. Dig it deep into the backlog ;-).

br HE

 

[Pöllö]

Bad Weather Weekend here, so no further test flights yet. I ended up adding more features instead. Majority of these are suggested by h-elsner, thanks for these! ;-)

The most interesting bits:

- Acquiring -> Ready transition on ST16 happens only when the drone is fully mission-capable. The PX4 takes its time to make things ready, even after the GPS has acquired a valid lock.

-The RGB LED and refactoring of ST16_telemetry.cpp. Minor changes here and there, but the most notable change will be the LED reacting to drone's status. This required some planning as I wanted it to be as intuitive as possible - no-one remembers complex light/blink patterns.

So I ended up with the following "rules":

1) When the LED is SOLID regardless of color, you have the full control
2) When the LED is BLINKING, the Thunderbird is actively doing something (like assisting you somehow)
3) The lighter the color, the harder more challenging and rewarding it is to fly ;-)
4) Red light = bad thing


Green: Startup

GREEN blinking: The drone is starting up. The GNSS and navigation systems are not ready. The home position is not set. The drone can be forced to fly in non-GNSS modes but RTL will not be available during that flight. GNSS-assisted flight modes are degraded to Stabilize with or without altitude hold. The GNSS-assisted modes will become available when the GNSS and estimator become ready (this will happen also during flight, but the RTH remains INOP until you land and take-off again, as there is no home position set for this flight). The drone takes a minute or two to start up, to be fully mission capable. This never happens indoors, but it is perfectly flyable.

The ST16 shows "acquiring" in GNSS mode display and "start" as a flight mode

GREEN solid: The drone is ready. It has full navigation capability and the home position is set. The green light will not appear when the drone is airborne. The ST16 GNSS status transitions from "acquiring" to "ready" and flight mode display shows also "ready". You are good to go, no need to wait any further.

Purple: GNSS-assisted flight

PURPLE blinking: Mission mode. The Thunderbird is fully automatic. This is the autoflight mode and easiest of them all since the drone flies itself from take-off to motor shutdown. ;-)
ST16 flight mode display: "Waypoint" or "Home".

PURPLE solid: Position Mode. The Thunderbird flies like a stock Typhoon.

All sensors and GNSS must be fully operational and perfectly calibrated for these modes.
ST16 flight mode display: "Angle"

Blue: Stabilize

BLUE blinking: Stabilize mode with altitude hold. Throttle controls altitude. The Thunderbird controls thrust to maintain the altitude. (If the Position mode was requested with no valid positioning solution, meaning you took off before the estimator and GNSS were ready, this is what you will get instead as a fallback. ) This mode is not mapped to the mode selector switch by default, but you can summon this by requesting a position mode from a drone that took off before it was ready.
BLUE solid: Stabilize mode. Like the Typhoon without the GPS. Direct throttle control, throttle controls thrust.

These modes do not require GNSS and magnetometer being operational. Indoor flight is possible and magnetic interferences are no issue. These modes can be used to recover the drone from GPS/magnetometer issues, if you'll ever encounter any. These modes require active controlling, but they are still rather easy to fly.
ST16 flight mode display in both: "THR"

White: Manual flight

WHITE blinking: Rattitude mode or "Assisted Acrobatics". Stabilize mode that does flips and loops. The Thunderbird is watching your back while you are bashing it around the sky. Release the sticks and the drone should self-recover if there is enough altitude.
WHITE solid: Manual, Acro or Rate mode. Sticks control angular acceleration, no self-leveling, no bank limiters, no braking, direct thrust control, absolutely zero assistance from the drone. The GPS, magnetometer, barometer and accelerometer are not used at all, only the gyro data is used for calculations. You are in control now. ;-)

These modes are not set to the mode selector switch in my default parameter file. You have to enable these by yourself. The "Purple solid" is a very difficult mode to fly, but allows you do anything with the drone. The white LED color never appears on a stock Typhoon.
ST16 flight mode display in both: "Rate"

Red: Bad things

RED blinking: The drone has degraded performance, but is airborne, still operational and attempts an automatic recovery. The LED blinks red when the failsafes are activated (RTH) or the drone attempts autoland with a failed GPS (you should never see this; I've seen that once on a huge octocopter in very special conditions, it survived this intact. In normal operation, plenty of things need to go wrong for this to happen).

RED solid: Malfunction, arming is prohibited

ST16 says: "EMER".

-

These are still subject to change, according to your feedback and my findings in test flights. How would you feel about these? OK / too complex to remember?

Br,

TR

^-- Edited. Thanks R G and h-elsner for the feedback!

 

[Enrico Jorysch]

Wow,
You're really getting into it, toni.

My translation program made me understand a few things... ...but I think I need Helmut's translation to get it right.

In Switzerland, a heavy storm is predicted for the next two days... 130 - 200 km/h

I wish you good flying weather soon and good luck with the tests.

Greetings Enrico

 

[h-elsner]

Wow, I like it very much. And perfect description - I will take it over to something like an draft user manual.
I can't wait to see what changes in telemetry we will get.

br HE

 

[R G]

Awesome work Toni! I'm shopping for a second H, without RealSense, to update to a Thunderbird. I have one suggestion; if I were switching back and forth between a stock H and the Thunderbird, I would be less inclined to suffer a "senior moment" if GNSS Assisted Flight used a purple LED and Manual Flight used a white LED. The blue LED is perfect for Stabilize Mode as that is what Yuneec/Blade uses for Stability Mode on the Q500 and Chroma. Just my two cents.

RG

 

[Pöllö]

Wow, I like it very much. And perfect description - I will take it over to something like an draft user manual.
I can't wait to see what changes in telemetry we will get.

br HE

Some little and minor changes, like Functional f_mode, which is now there and your excellent table of flight modes is added to the .h file for reference. Thanks for that table, it made this a way easier! ;-)

I am using them in a little creative way, like when the drone is starting up (no GNSS is available or the estimator is not ready and the LED is blinking green), the mode is "START" and it goes to "READY" when the drone is ready for navigation and GNSS-assisted modes. Other modes that may appear during the flight are THR, ANGLE, WAYPOINT, Home and EMER. More will come later... I added these also to the RGB LED description above. ;-)

Pitch / Roll / Yaw data are also there, but their functionality is not yet verified.

Br,

TR

 

[Pöllö]

Awesome work Toni! I'm shopping for a second H, without RealSense, to update to a Thunderbird. I have one suggestion; if I were switching back and forth between a stock H and the Thunderbird, I would be less inclined to suffer a "senior moment" if GNSS Assisted Flight used a purple LED and Manual Flight used a white LED. The blue LED is perfect for Stabilize Mode as that is what Yuneec/Blade uses for Stability Mode on the Q500 and Chroma. Just my two cents.

RG

Thank you very much for your suggestion, that makes perfect sense! The RGB LED behavior is now changed to the one you suggested.
Nice to hear that you are getting another TH for the Thunderbird ;-)

 

[h-elsner]

Correct me when I'm wrong but I think the Altitude mode (Blue blinking) is the same as stock Typhoon H in Angle mode without GPS.
Stabilize mode (Blue solid) is something new for Typhoon H owners. It is the same as "Stability" mode, known from Blade Chroma or Blade 350QX.
Keep an eye on it in this mode. Throttle stick fully down means the drone come down like a free falling stone.
Blue and white modes are VLOS-only modes! ST16 screen latency is too high for that, forget it.

br HE

 

[h-elsner]

And another wish:
Can we get the Altitude as relative to start instead of the absolute height from GPS? I am weak in mental arithmetic.

br HE

 

[h-elsner]

I started to create some kind of User Manual. It is an early, early draft! Please review, correct and comment. Don't hesitate to criticize.
Everybody is invited to help. Thank you.

Latest docs are always here:

Thunderbird/Documentation at Typhoon_H_480 · h-elsner/Thunderbird

Thunderbird Firmware, A fork of PX4 Autopilot Software for Yuneec Typhoon H - h-elsner/Thunderbird

github.com

br HE