@neon64 wrote:

I'm trying to compile the master-AVR branch to use on my APM 2.x board. I am running ArchLinux. However when running make from the APMrover2 directory I get the following error:

Hardware directory for arduino not found

I was under the impression that you can either use make or the Arduino software. But regardless I installed the Arduino IDE using pacaur -S arduino.

On Mac, I'm pretty sure the hardware directory is /Applications/Arduino.app/Contents/Java/hardware/.
On Linux, the equivalent seems to be /usr/share/arduino/hardware.
However while that folder on the Mac contains lots of subfolders and binaries but on Linux it is empty.

Thanks if anyone can help to diagnose this issue.

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@John_Easton wrote:

Hi all, as some of you might remember I was having a problem with my survey boat zig zagging terribly while carrying out a mission. At first I thought it was a Mission Planner parameter setting, but it turned out to be the little L298N H-Bridge failing due to excessive heat. This was caused by me upgrading the outboard motor to a Suzuki 2.5hp four stroke which turns out to have a LOT more drag on the pivot (steering) column. This drag put extra stress on the little 2A H-Bridge causing it to fail intermittently.
The solution was to upgrade the H-Bridge to a 10A H-Bridge, but being in South Africa, none are available locally so I built my own from a diagram on-line and connected as follows. This unfortunately puts it onto a DEAD SHORT condition.

What am I doing wrong?

h-bridge 10A mod.png855x544 148 KB

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@onoffon wrote:

Hello everyone, newbie here.

I'm long time rc hobbist but i have little to no knowlige about autopilots.
That being said, i need to find a way to integrate gps waypoint and compass autopilot to a real boat.
So, that eliminates the need for any remote control. Shure, i can use tx/rx but sistem must be cost efficient.
Is it possible to make sistem with something rather cheap like pixhawk where user can set gps waypoints, upload it simply to autopilot sistem (android or iOS platform must be used), push a button, set engine throttle and fish without worries ?
Steering would be done with some kind of high torqe engine, like windshield wipers engine, combined with hall effect sensor for rudder steer angle return information.
I know there is little chance i could find pwm controlled high power motor driver that i can plug directly into pixhawk so there is option that motor and driver is controlled with arduino taking commands from pixhawk.

Is something like this done before ? Any suggestions please?

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@EddieWeeks wrote:

I help some LSU students build a 4 foot long boat with Pixhawk in rover mode.

After of hours of tuning and tens of hours testing..

Here is our latest test run.

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@Johannes_Frolich wrote:

Hey,

i am currently going through the wiki while setting up a rover for the first time. There are a couple of things i cannot find an answer:

1. is there a way to disable the fs when no reception to the transmitter is present? (descriped in http://ardupilot.org/rover/docs/auto-mode.html)
2. I am planning to make a boat wich will be on the water for a long time. That includes reboots (in rough waters)! What is the most elegant way to reboot the system regarding IMU / Compas (?) calibration and usage of EK2 / EKF?
3. is there a way start the system armed and in a specific mode? (would not be too terrible, since a raspberry pi is already handling the modes.

I hope anyone can clarify a littlebit of it!!

Thank you so much,
Cheers

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@Artur_H wrote:

Hello everyone!
I am trying to assemble a boat with APM to move autonomously. Since I am using 2 BLDC-s to move the boat, I am using the Rover firmware with SKID_STEERING_OUT and _IN turned on. In the documentation it is written that in this mode output channel 1 should power one motor and channel 3 should power the other.
On channel 3 it is working perfectly with my joystick through a laptop and a radio module.
The problem is it seems that channel 1 provides a square signal but there is no PWM change however I pull the throttle up or down.

Parts that I'm using:
- APM 2.6 with the latest Rover firmware
- Hobbyking 30A ESCs
- 930KV 2212 BLDCs
- FPV 433MHz telemtery pair
- 3dr power module
- 2 cell LiPo battery

Thank you in advance for the answers, if anything more needs to be specified, I will!

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@nakia wrote:

Hi All,

I know its been worked on for some time but can someone confirm or deny that 3.1.0 now supports waypoints as ints?
If so, has APM Planner/Mission Planner been updated to support this functionity?

Any ideas on what sort of accuracy this now provides (considering I am using RTK GPS).

Thanks in advance

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@TCIII wrote:

Hi All,

For those of you who are interested in or are using ArduSub on your ROV be it a BlueROV1/2 or a homebrew ROV, here is an additional resource.

Regards,
TCIII AVD

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@Pilot2016 wrote:

Hi,

This is my first attempt for rover with ardurover 2.8 using a cheap crawler. I found a normal rc motor steering style at front at rover so I replaced with Professional SG90 SG90 9g Micro Servo
I followed all the instructions on the ardurover.org documentation. Now able to move rover forward and reverse using radio. Also the servo moves both sides but very slowly and not immediately.
I am for temp use, using my quad battery (3300mah) 11.1v. with UBEC 5v output to both servo and esc to motors. APM is getting current from esc. Looks everything is working fine but servo looks sick and slow. its a new servo hooked to pin 1 on apm and wheel motors on pin 3.
I also want to move my steering servo control on radio to left stick which is on right stick. I selected mode 2.

Please help me as I finished it soon.

Thanks

FQ

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@antimattercrusader wrote:

Hello, I've been designing and building a number of TIG welded aluminum hulls for my water quality and bathymetry projects and have one that I need to sell. This design is very efficient - but it turned out not to be the right design for this particular project so I am going to build a different hull, need to sell this one.

Photos are available here: http://diydrones.com/group/arduboat-user-group/forum/topics/for-sale-aluminum-arduboat-hull-1m-long

I have designed a rudder system which uses a 3D Printed Rudder, Servo Holder with a bolt, pipe, and flange to create a reliable sealed above-water-line steering system. I will include it and the servo, so all that will be needed in this is to connect that servo to your system. Steering - one of the biggest pains, already solved!

It has a cutout on top for a Lowrance sonar unit - but I have a blank that can bolt in this hole to seal it up.

This is setup for a T100 thruster from BlueRobotics. The thruster is not included as it will be on the new design - though if you want it, I will include it attached/sealed for $120

If anyone wants this, I'm asking $250 shipped to the US. Let me know if interested if you have any questions!

Specs are:
* Length: 1000mm
* Width: 300mm
* Material: 060 5052 Aluminum

Included:
* Hull
* Sonar Cutout Blank
* Bolt on Lid
* 3D Printed Plug for hole on back
* Dome
* Hour Meter
* Hull
* Steering/Rudder System

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@antimattercrusader wrote:

So I've been reading on these forums (here and DIYDrones) and have found a lot of cool knowledge and info, its helped answer some questions and spur some creativity! Now, I am trying to get into building arduboats for bathymetry and/or water quality analysis and want to share a design and setup in case it may help someone else with their projects, and to gain any input anyone may want to share.

I am calling this one the HarborMaster or perhaps HarborScan. I don’t know for sure yet. It one of 4 designs and my favorite – this one is 6ft long, made of 0.08 5052 Tig Welded Aluminum, is powered by a 30lb thrust trolling motor and dimension engineering Syren controller – of course with Pixhawk with ArduRover firmware.

The telemetry is a 500mw 900mhz link, paired to an on board Windows 10 SOC. The USB side of the telemetry can be plugged into base station laptop for traditional RF-Mission Planner control, or plugged into the SOC which works work with a hotspot and Amazon EC2 instance to relay the signal over cellular. The boat also runs Skype and has a Logitech C920 camera in a 3D printed housing, so in areas with good LTE, very high quality video is possible. When operating with a remote from the video feed, the lag is surprisingly minimal, maybe around 200-400ms.

The design is deep/tall with a lot of freeboard, primarily because I wanted to have the option of installing a tall Group 29D 120ah lead acid battery for longer missions, which provides >20hr endurance. That’s a pain to carry though, so typically I use a 40ah 4S LiFeP04 battery which gets around 10hrs.

I've installed a Lowrance sonar unit and may also add water quality sensors such as dissolved oxygen, ph, conductivity and temperature but this is a new area to me, have some learning to do.

I’ve also installed a 750gph bildge pump just in case there are any issues… it just hit 250 hours on the clock last weekend, so far so good, no breakdowns - though I did run the battery dead once and one time getting stuck in a thick patch of seaweed.

Anyway, if anyone has any suggestions, or has any questions on the setup, wants to bounce ideas around – post here! Happy to share and learn.

Here are some pics of other designs, which is not as well tested yet, but so far seem to perform well!

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@Pilot2016 wrote:

Hi is there any way we can reverse the steering direction. After I mount a servo for the steering and check, it is going in reverse order, say if I turn rover left from radio, it turns right. I know I can achieve this by reversing the check box on MP but what happens if it would run in auto or guided mode without radio. So APM would think it is turning left but it will be actually right. Mechanically it looks very difficult. Can we swap the +ve wire of servo with -ve wire going to APM? I am afraid it would burn the servo.

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@rjehangir wrote:

Today we're happy to announce the first stable release of ArduSub. Today we've posted a "release candidate" that we would like you all test for the next few weeks until we can confirm it is stable. Most of the work completed here is thanks to @jaxxzer!

ArduSub-v3.4-rc1 is the release candidate for ArduSub-v3.4. There are a few important changes and notes for this update, so please read the notes posted here. Most importantly, this update will wipe your parameters clean, so we recommend saving your parameters before update. This is a one-time change that we're taking care of now.
@jaxxzer made a quick tutorial video on Youtube that explains how to update the Pixhawk firmware to v3.4.

Please test this update and let us know if you have any feedback here or on Gitter: https://gitter.im/bluerobotics/ardusub

Moving forward, we'll plan to release a new stable update every few months.

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@J.Leite wrote:

Hi,
I am trying to use a Joystick instead of a RC, we could configure the Joystick but every time we start the boat the Joystick configuration is lost and I have to setup it again. There is any way we can save the Pixhawk to only use Joystick and not RC? Can we save the configuration od the Joystick so I do not need to repeat it every time I turn the device on?

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@TomaszKn wrote:

First you must see this my movie:
Movie
In manual mode everything works ok.
In autonomous mode is problem with engines.
Boat floats along the right lines, but never run both engines.
On the some times works only one engine as you see on movie.

I'm using Pixhawk 2.8 , and ardurower 3.1.beta4 software.

Any suggestions?

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@SylvanH wrote:

Hello,

I am working on a quite heavy rover (for the moment at 30 kg, but it'll be near 100 kg in the future).

I succeeded to perform the compass and accelerometers calibrations but it was quite hard (I needed some more arms to carry the rover and rotate it around all the axes...)

Considering I will need to redo the calibrations once it'll be at 100 kg (because this addition of weight is made of metal), it will be even more difficult to carry the rover and perform the calibrations.

Therefore, I am looking for some ways of simplifying the calibration and move as less as possible the rover :
- is it possible to do it via an external software ?
- is it possible to have a quite good calibration only by moving the rover on level because it will never roll over on purpose ?

If the only solution is to modify the firmware of ardurover, I am ready for it.

Thank you in advance.

Sylvan.

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@gmorph wrote:

APM:Rover Release 3.1.0, 22 December 2016

The ArduPilot development team is proud to announce the release of version 3.1.0 of APM:Rover. This is a major release with a lot of changes so please read the notes carefully!

A huge thanks to ALL the ArduPilot developers. The Rover code benefits tremendously from all the hard work that goes into the Copter and Plane vehicle code. Most of the code changes in this release were not specifically for Rover however because of the fantastic architecture of the ArduPilot code Rover automatically gets those enhancements anyway.

Note that the documentation hasn't yet caught up with all the changes in this release. We are still working on that, but meanwhile if you see a feature that interests you and it isn't documented yet then please ask.

The Release Photo Above:
This is a 300 m wide lake.
The water temperature was 55 C
The pH was 0.5 - the same as battery acid
There were a lot of phreatic explosions in the middle of the lake.
The yellow rafters are sulfur.
Gasmasks were necessary because of the very high SO2 concentration.
It was also very hot.
The boat is designed for mapping an acid lake. That's why no prop in the water and nearly no metal parts.
And the AutoPilot - ArduPilot of course - no other AutoPilot will do.
http://discuss.ardupilot.org/t/sonar-air-boat-working-fine/9912

Release Information

The PX4-v2 build has had CANBUS support removed due to firmware size issues. If Rover users want CANBUS support you will need to install the PX4-v3 build located in the firmware folder here:
http://firmware.ap.ardupilot.org/Rover/stable/PX4/

EKF1 has been removed as EKF2 has been the long term default and is working extremely well and this has allowed room for EKF3.

EKF3 is included in this release but it is not the default. Should you want to experiment with it set the following parameters:
AHRS_EKF_TYPE=3
EK3_ENABLE=1
but note it is still experimental and you must fully understand the implications.

New GUIDED Command

Rover now accepts a new message MAV_CMD_NAV_SET_YAW_SPEED which has an angle in centidegrees and a speed scale and the rover will drive based on these inputs.

The ArduPilot team would like to thank EnRoute for the sponsoring of this feature
http://enroute.co.jp/

COMMAND_INT and ROI Commands

COMMAND_INT support has been added to Rover. This has allowed the implementation of SET_POSITION_TARGET_GLOBAL_INT,
SET_POSITION_TARGET_LOCAL_NED and DO_SET_ROI as a COMMAND_INT

The ArduPilot team would like to thank EnRoute for the sponsoring of this feature
http://enroute.co.jp/

Reverse

Its now possible in a mission to tell the rover to drive in Reverse. If using Mission Planner insert a new Waypoint using "Add Below" button on the Flight Plan screen and select from the Command drop down list you will see a new command "DO_SET_REVERSE". It takes 1 parameter - 0 for forward, 1 for reverse. It's that simple. Please give it a try and report back any success or issues found or any questions as well.

The ArduPilot team would like to thank the Institute for Intelligent Systems Research at Deakin University
(http://www.deakin.edu.au/research/iisri) for the sponsoring of the reverse functionality.

Loiter

This changes brings the LOITER commands in line with other ArduPilot vehicles so both NAV_LOITER_UNLIM and NAV_LOITER_TIME are supported and are actively loitering. This means for instance if you have set a boat to loiter at a particular position and the water current pushes the boat off that position once the boat has drifted further then the WP_RADIUS parameter distance setting from the position the motor(s) will be engaged and the boat will return to the loiter position.

The ArduPilot team would like to thanko MarineTech for sponsoring this enhancement.
http://www.marinetech.fr

Note: if you currently use Param1 of a NAV_WAYPOINT to loiter at a waypoint this functionality has not changed and is NOT actively loitering.

Crash Check

Rover can now detect a crash in most circumstances - thanks Pierre Kancir. It is enabled by default and will change the vehicle into HOLD mode if a crash is detected. FS_CRASH_CHECK is the parameter used to control what action to take on a crash detection and it supports 0:Disabled, 1:HOLD, 2:HoldAndDisarm

Pixhawk2 heated IMU support

This release adds support for the IMU heater in the Pixhawk2, allowing for more stable IMU temperatures. The Pixhawk2 is automatically detected and the heater enabled at boot, with the target IMU temperature controllable via BRD_IMU_TARGTEMP. Using an IMU heater should improve IMU stability in environments with significant temperature changes.

PH2SLIM Support

This release adds support for the PH2SLIM variant of the Pixhawk2, which is a Pixhawk2 cube without the isolated sensor top board. This makes for a very compact autopilot for small aircraft. To enable PH2SLIM support set the BRD_TYPE parameter to 6 using a GCS connected on USB.

AP_Module Support

This is the first release of ArduPilot with loadable module support for Linux based boards. The AP_Module system allows for externally compiled modules to access sensor data from ArduPilot controlled sensors. The initial AP_Module support is aimed at vendors integrating high-rate digital image stabilisation using IMU data, but it is expected this will be expanded to other use cases in future releases.

Major VRBrain Support Update

This release includes a major merge of support for the VRBrain family of autopilots. Many thanks to the great work by Luke Mike in putting together this merge!

Much Faster Boot Time

Boot times on Pixhawk are now much faster due to a restructuring of the driver startup code, with slow starting drivers not started unless they are enabled with the appropriate parameters. The restructuring also allows for support of a wide variety of board types, including the PH2SLIM above.

This release includes many other updates right across the flight stack, including several new features. Some of the changes include:

• log all rally points on startup
• the armed state is now logged
• support added for MAV_CMD_ACCELCAL_VEHICLE_POS
• support MAVLink based external GPS device
• support LED_CONTROL MAVLink message
• support PLAY_TUNE MAVLink message
• added AP_Button support for remote button input reporting
• support 16 channel SERVO_OUTPUT_RAW in MAVLink2
• added MAVLink reporting of logging subsystem health
• added BRD_SAFETY_MASK to allow for channel movement for selected channels with safety on
• lots of HAL_Linux improvements to bus and thread handling
• added IMU heater support on Pixhawk2
• allow for faster accel bias learning in EKF2
• added AP_Module support for loadable modules
• merged support for wide range of VRBrain boards
• added support for PH2SLIM and PHMINI boards with BRD_TYPE
• greatly reduced boot time on Pixhawk and similar boards
• fixed magic check for signing key in MAVLink2
• fixed averaging of gyros for EKF2 gyro bias estimate
• added support for ParametersG2
• support added for the GPS_INPUT mavlink message

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@Nathan_Spotts wrote:

I'm not sure if I should have, but I just updated my Rover firmware to V3.1.0. After doing so, when I try to learn waypoints with channecl 7, it records points, but they are all at 0 latitute, 0 longitute, and 0 altitude. I tried restarting everything but not change. Any advice or do I need to revert to v3.0. Thanks.

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@J.Leite wrote:

Hi Every one,
I noted that if I go to maximum speed on the boat, my battery consumption increase very rapidly and my speed does not grow in same way. I would like to ask if some one know if I can setup the some limit for the maximum power, reducing it like in the autonomous mode, so even if I push my joystick to maximum position, my power will not be set to 100%.

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@Jean-luc_DRONE wrote:

Hi,

I used since many years a 6wd dagu and APM 2.5 2.6 with no problem, but I'd like to upgrade with a pixhawk.Alas, I've a big problem it's impossible to move forward or back, no problem to turn left or right. I'd test with a navio+ and it's the same problem.
I'd return with APM and no problem. I used ardurover 3.1.0 and sabertooth 2x25.
I'd test many possibility with sabertooth's switch and skid_steer_out 1 but it refuse to move back or forward.

Thanks for your help.

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