Altitude hold not holding – always sinking!

[hogster]

Hi everyone

I thought I'd bring this question into its own thread in the tuning section ...

My AQ-controlled X8 is flying quite well now that I have reduced the vibration being picked up by the AQ using vibration-damping grommets. Current vibration levels from my last flight here:

24-12-14 ACC plots

The problem is when activating the Position Hold mode the platform slowly sinks to the ground. The position hold bit works and can keep the platform in position even in a headwind ... but the altitude hold is non existent! Even if I've set the throttle correctly to maintain altitude in Manual mode, enabling Position Hold mode makes the platform sink slowly.

Curiously, the GPS_HEIGHT plot actually shows this slow descent – so the AQ knows the platform is sinking but it doesn't appear to be doing anything about it! You can see the three downward sloping lines here which coincide with me enabling Position Hold mode. After the last descent I decided it wasn't worth pursuing with the tests any further!

24-12-14 GPS_HEIGHT plot

I tried adjusting the Navigation Altitude Position P and I values but they appeared to make no difference whatsoever. Do these only affect the Mission mode rather than just the Position Hold mode?

What parameters can I adjust to improve the altitude-hold performance?

Many thanks for your help!

David

[LPR]

David

There's some info in the AQ wiki.

http://autoquad.org/wiki/wiki/configuri ... eshooting/

Larry

[hogster]

Thanks LPR, I hadn't even thought to look in the Wiki!

This seems most relevant:

I have a relatively heavy payload and my AQ cannot reach the target altitude .... Increase your altitude speed P slightly.

I was adjusting the Altitude Position before so I will try changing the speed this time. What do the Navigation Altitude Position PIDs (or PI!) control do you know?

Many thanks

David

[aBUGSworstnightmare]

Hi David,

Sounds like you need to increase NAV_ALT_SPEED_I
Joerg

[hogster]

Thanks for your reply Joerg I'm on holiday now but will certainly give this tweak a go when I'm back in January.

Thanks again!

David

[hogster]

Hi Joerg,

Just to let you know I've finally tried your suggestion of increasing Nav Alt Speed I but it didn't really improve matters

Previously with the value set at 2.84, the craft would slowly and steadily descend when position hold was enabled. But as soon as I increased it to 3, 3.5 or 4, the descent would keep stopping and starting with the motors ramping up in speed to halt the descent, but then slowing down too much afterwards allowing the craft to start sinking again.

Should I try increasing the P value or do you think it's something to do with the Nav Alt Pos gains?

Many thanks for your help

David