Boat Mode

Courtland · Feb 22, 2016

Captain J.D. said:
In researching some discussions and various blogs I was directed to an old discussion here, I'm new to the group btw, regarding problems getting the solo to initialize when "on a boat". Filming offshore was the whole reason my wife got me a drone in the first place, had no idea the solo would be so hard to initialize when on a rocking boat vs the Phantom, which I've had friends use on the boat numerous times with no problems at all. Anyways in the old discussion I found from back in the summer, there seemed to be some research into creating a "Boat Mode" that would possibly be a work-around and make the thing initialize better if not completely still etc. Does anyone have any recent info on this topic or suggestions for me? I fear I'm just going to have to buy a different drone and be done with it, which I hate b/c the flight features on this thing are so nice, and I can fly and run the boat at the same time all by myself.

Pleeease find an answer soon. This is the only reason I was want the drone too. Let me know if you make head way

Rich · Feb 22, 2016

Everyone that wants to fly from a boat should start sending messages, and help tickets to 3dr and also post to the Facebook Solo page about it.

They seem to think not many care about this type of operation, yet they highlight it in their own videos, which makes all of us think it is possible.

Please, let's let them know that this IS important to those of us that want to fly from a boat.

Just commenting on this this thread doesn't get enough visibility to help at all.

Burtus · Feb 22, 2016

We want it for boat launches too!

Ian [P13] · Feb 22, 2016

Rich said:
Everyone that wants to fly from a boat should start sending messages, and help tickets to 3dr and also post to the Facebook Solo page about it.

That'll make no difference other than to clog up support as this feature is within the master branch of Arducopter which 3DR is already in the process of merging as part of firmware release 3.4, you're aware of this already as I've mentioned this to you on the Facebook group.

Boat requires EKF2 which is a significant update to the code which will require months (likely several) of testing.

The release notes are here, technically if you wanted you can apply the Arducopter beta to your Solo at your own risk, but you'd still need to wait to 3.4 to be ready on copter (it's just plane at the moment).

ardupilot/ReleaseNotes.txt at master · diydrones/ardupilot · GitHub

3.4 is only on plane at the moment, you can see boat code in there.
ardupilot/release-notes.txt at master · diydrones/ardupilot · GitHub

If you want to discuss boat and test boat and keep up to date on boat DIY Drones is the best place to do this or maybe Google groups for Arducopter.

Google Groups

Burtus · Feb 22, 2016

Good info....Thanks
Not sure when I will be flying it again. I clipped a tree on the river bank out front and went diving. Contacted 3DR about a new board and cpu and got a lame answers from Ludwig. Not trying for warranty...I crashed it. Guess I'll have to buy a crashed dry one on eBay or a quad only at $699.

Ian [P13] · Feb 22, 2016

Burtus said:
Good info....Thanks
Not sure when I will be flying it again. I clipped a tree on the river bank out front and went diving. Contacted 3DR about a new board and cpu and got a lame answers from Ludwig. Not trying for warranty...I crashed it. Guess I'll have to buy a crashed dry one on eBay or a quad only at $699.

The main board plus Pixhawk are a probably together going to cost much of the whole price of a Solo. Is it water damage that have killed these?

Maybe @Vu.3DR can help?

ajdelange · Feb 22, 2016

Jubalr said:
It's a general rule for any type of transmitter. Running without an antenna can burn out the final circuit. For testing they make what are called 'dummy loads' to prevent damage. Failure to use a proper antenna or load causes a reflected wave standing wave ratio (SWR) that can damage the final amplifier stage. This final amplifier stage is the power amplifier (PA).

We're talking 20 some dBm here. At those levels the power coming back, even with a reflection coefficient of 1 (∞ VSWR), isn't going to be enough to damage the electronics. And even if it were the manufacturer would sense the reverse power and kill the drive to the final stage. That's what is done in higher power transmitters where the reflected energy could damage the final circuits. Think about it for a minute. This is 802.11 technology. Do we think someone would sell a wireless router that would be damaged if the consumer plugged it in before he put the antennas on? Or if he took an antenna off without unplugging? Have we ever seen an 802.11 device with a warning to not operate without the antenna(s)?

Now in the 2.5 W (34 dBm) booster amps high VSWR might be a problem. These are doubtless VSWR protected but I would want to be sure of that before operating them into no load.

Maddog · Feb 22, 2016

Ian [P13] said:
That'll make no difference other than to clog up support as this feature is within the master branch of Arducopter which 3DR is already in the process of merging as part of firmware release 3.4, you're aware of this already as I've mentioned this to you on the Facebook group.

Boat requires EKF2 which is a significant update to the code which will require months (likely several) of testing.

The release notes are here, technically if you wanted you can apply the Arducopter beta to your Solo at your own risk for the code now.

ardupilot/release-notes.txt at master · diydrones/ardupilot · GitHub

I can't yet see a 3.4 thread for copter, it seems 3.3 is still the work in progress which is here (I did note there are people within this thread already on 3.4):
Copter-3.3 beta testing

If you want to discuss boat and test boat and keep up to date on boat DIY Drones is the best place to do this or maybe Google groups for Arducopter.

Google Groups

I agree that sending messages and help tickets to 3DR requesting this feature will just clog up the system.
Kinda like calling 9-1-1 for traffic directions.

Burtus · Feb 22, 2016

Ian [P13] said:
The main board plus Pixhawk are a probably together going to cost much of the whole price of a Solo. Is it water damage that have killed these?

Maybe @Vu.3DR can help?

I pretty sure it's water.The tree hit was very minor. I have it all back in 30lbs of rice. Thankfully it was fresh water and not salt.

J R · Feb 22, 2016

Burtus said:
I pretty sure it's water.The tree hit was very minor. I have it all back in 30lbs of rice. Thankfully it was fresh water and not salt.

Burtus,

Put it in a small room (or makeshift box) with a dehumidifier. It'll suck every drop of water out of it. I haven't had to do this with any of my birds but I have with other electronic devices and it worked great!

Jerry

Rich · Feb 23, 2016

@Captain J.D. have you had any more luck flying from your boat ?

Burtus · Feb 23, 2016

J R said:
Burtus,

Put it in a small room (or makeshift box) with a dehumidifier. It'll suck every drop of water out of it. I haven't had to do this with any of my birds but I have with other electronic devices and it worked great!

Jerry

Thanks Jerry,
I have industrial dehumidifiers running in the room the bird in rice sits. It's also fully disassembled. I'm in the sail business. Each dehumidifier can do 20-30 gallons a day. If there is a chance to save it, I think I have the setup do it. I bought the wifi upgrade cards and the HDMI cable upgrade. Also have the FPVLR antenna. Will fit this with the reassembly. Would it be smart to do motor bearings? Who carries them.

If I'm in the wrong section/thread for this please advise and I will relocate.

Also, is there a section to check in to see how stable the beta upgrades 3.3 and 3.4 for boat option are.

Thanks in advance for the help and advice.

Rich · Feb 25, 2016

Looking at some of the release notes, it appears that we need code base 3.5 for Solo.

This code just came to life on 30 January, so it may be a year before we see on Solo.

I still think 3DR should know that there are users that want to fly from boats, as they show in their videos.

So don't be discouraged, let them know what you need if this affects you.

Oh here is the big item we seem to need as noted in the 3.5 release notes:

Startup on a moving platform
One of the benefits of the new EKF2 estimator is that it allows for
rapid estimation of gyro offset without doing a gyro calibration on
startup. This makes it possible to startup and arm on a moving
platform by setting the INS_GYR_CAL parameter to zero (to disable gyro
calibration on boot). This should be a big help when flying off boats.

So it appears to be a gyro offset or drift measurement / calibration issue at startup time.

I wonder how other brands of controllers handle this issue? There must be more than one way to handle it.

Jubalr · Feb 25, 2016

Rich said:
Looking at some of the release notes, it appears that we need code base 3.5 for Solo.

This code just came to life on 30 January, so it may be a year before we see on Solo.

I still think 3DR should know that there are users that want to fly from boats, as they show in their videos.

So don't be discouraged, let them know what you need if this affects you.

Oh here is the big item we seem to need as noted in the 3.5 release notes:

Startup on a moving platform
One of the benefits of the new EKF2 estimator is that it allows for
rapid estimation of gyro offset without doing a gyro calibration on
startup. This makes it possible to startup and arm on a moving
platform by setting the INS_GYR_CAL parameter to zero (to disable gyro
calibration on boot). This should be a big help when flying off boats.

So it appears to be a gyro offset or drift measurement / calibration issue at startup time.

I wonder how other brands of controllers handle this issue? There must be more than one way to handle it.

Good Find Rich. I'll try setting that to 0 and test it this evening.

Rich · Feb 25, 2016

I think it only pertains to the 3.5 code base which is months, if not a year away.

PdxSteve · Feb 25, 2016

Rich said:
I think it only pertains to the 3.5 code base which is months, if not a year away.

Why do you think that? They're already working on merging the ardupilot codebase back into solo about a week ago. There will be a lot of testing needed though before it's ready for a release but I don't think this will take a year...
GitHub - 3drobotics/ardupilot-solo-rebase

erikgraham · Feb 25, 2016

Wait. Are we sure its 3.5? I thought it was 3.4

Rich · Feb 26, 2016

Go and read through release notes, 3.5 was started January 30, 2016. So it takes time. And also, this is for plane, not copter, so more time to get on copter. If 3DR is starting to merge with 3.4, then it may take more time until 3.5 is tested and released.

Release notes:
ardupilot/release-notes.txt at master · diydrones/ardupilot · GitHub

Keep in mind, we are only speculating here.

erikgraham · Feb 26, 2016

Rich said:
Go and read through release notes, 3.5 was started January 30, 2016. So it takes time. And also, this is for plane, not copter, so more time to get on copter. If 3DR is starting to merge with 3.4, then it may take more time until 3.5 is tested and released.

Release notes:
ardupilot/release-notes.txt at master · diydrones/ardupilot · GitHub

Keep in mind, we are only speculating here.

Didn't read through it yet, but last I heard from the Developers was that boat mode was going into 3.4. I mean it's already in there, just need to wait for 3.4 and solo to get merged. That was awhile ago in the 3.3 beta group because we thought we might get it there. Anyway, I'll do some reading.

Rich · Feb 26, 2016

Yes, but that was before 3.5 was out, so this now says that the EKF2 and boat mode needs 3.5 as a minimum, so I am wondering what the end game will be also.