Issue controlling the RB5

stevedan

When in position mode, after the drone is armed and the throttle set to 50%, the drone flips and tries to fly in the negative pitch direction. We also tried arming with the throttle at 0%, but the drone still tries to fly. It seems that the command for the pitch rate and the command for the z position are inversed. The logs are in this repository I am not certain if the conclusion made is correct, maybe there is something left that is not done correcly.

We bought an RB5 in febraury and decided to use it now with the latest platform release that include both the system image and voxl sdk.
Info on the drone
Voxl version

rb5:~$ voxl-version
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
system-image: 1.3.1-M0052-14.1a-perf
kernel:       #1 SMP PREEMPT Tue Aug 2 05:23:10 UTC 2022 4.19.125
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
hw version:   M0052
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
voxl-suite:   0.8.1
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Px4-version

rb5:~$ px4-versions
px4-support/now 1.0-5 arm64 [installed,local]
python3-px4sitl/bionic 0.0.2-100 all
ros-melodic-px4-msgs/bionic 1.0.0-1bionic.20221025.181332 arm64
voxl-px4/unknown,now 1.4.16 arm64 [installed,automatic]
voxl-px4-imu-server/unknown,now 0.1.2 arm64 [installed,automatic]
voxl-vision-px4/unknown,now 1.2.0 arm64 [installed,automatic]
libfc-sensor/now 1.0-2 arm64 [installed,local]
1.3.1-M0052-14.1a-perf

PX4 Firmware info
firmware version 1.4.16alpha
custom fw. Ver 0.0.0
This is the version that came with the drone initially.

After setting the voxl mpa, we used the following px4-parameters file in QGC

Platform

https://gitlab.com/voxl-public/flight-core-px4/px4-parameters/-/blob/master/platforms/v1.12/RB5_Flight/RB5_Flight_V1_param_HolyBroMotors_4s_rev_A.params
After loading the previous file, we get an error that DSHOT_TEL_CFG param does not exist.

For the remote control and the indoor vio param
https://gitlab.com/voxl-public/flight-core-px4/px4-parameters/-/tree/master/helpers/v1.12

After calibrating the sensors, and the rc(dx6e), the system was not able to go ready to fly. After trying to arm, we get the error

system power unavaible 
MAV_CMD_COMPONENTARM_DISARM command temporally rejected

In order to solve the problem we tries disabling the CBRK_SUPPLY_CHK. This seems to solve the problem and let the drone to go into ready to fly mode.

Loulou Mach

Hi @stevedan, let us get the appropriate team member to take a look at this and get back to you. Thanks!

Hi @stevedan,

What motors are on your drone? Does it say Holy Bro or have the ModalAI logo?

When you updated the system, did you preserve your camera calibration files?

Thanks,
Rich

stevedan

The motors on the drone is the Holybro 2216/880kv. Yes I preserved the calibration files. I also verified that the vio is working correctly.

stevedan

@RichieRich Without making the CBRK_SUPPLY_CHK change, the system does not even want to fly. It never arms and just gives

system power unavaible 
MAV_CMD_COMPONENTARM_DISARM command temporally rejected

Hi @stevedan ,

The CBRK_SUPPLY_CHK 894281 parameter is necessary for the this platform to work. It's set in the RB5 Platform parameters: https://gitlab.com/voxl-public/flight-core-px4/px4-parameters/-/blob/master/platforms/v1.12/RB5_Flight/RB5_Flight_V1_param_HolyBroMotors_4s_rev_A.params

It should have been properly set when you loaded the parameters.

The DSHOT error is OK, since you're using the ModalAI UART ESC that blinks blue when px4 starts up.

For clarity, you went through the RC calibration in QGC?

You loaded the indoor parameters for VIO indoor flight control? https://gitlab.com/voxl-public/flight-core-px4/px4-parameters/-/blob/master/helpers/rb5/ekf2_indoor_vio.params

What command did you use for voxl-configure-mpa setup? Should be: voxl-configure-mpa -p -f rb5-flight

stevedan

I figured out the Issue. The problem is that when I upload the parameters from the ground control, not all the paramters gets updated.
Specifically this ones

################################################################################
# Hardware-Specific Configuration for ModalAI Rb5 Drone with 4S battery
#
# This is NOT a complete set of PX4 parameters. These are non-default parameters
# specific to the airframe and are meant to be loaded over the defaults.
################################################################################

################################################################################
# quadcopter X type with no safety switch
# board flat in default orientation
################################################################################
1	1	CBRK_SUPPLY_CHK 894281	6
# Assume RC as default
# Disable since there is no safety switch
1       1       COM_PREARM_MODE 0      6
# Sending joystick commands over wifi is a bad idea for manual mode flight.
# Best to only do this in position hold mode. Set a big timeout for this.
1       1       COM_RC_LOSS_T 2.0      6
# Disable action on data link lost
1       1       COM_ARM_WO_GPS 0    6
1       1       MAV_BROADCAST 1       6

################################################################################
# Battery Config
# resistance is per cell
################################################################################

1	1	BAT1_R_INTERNAL 0.008	9



# disable bat scaling with our own RPM controlled ESCs!
1	1	MC_BAT_SCALE_EN	0	6

# ESC configuration for ModalAI ESC
1       1       UART_ESC_CONFIG 1       9
1       1       UART_ESC_RPM_MAX 10500        9
1       1       UART_ESC_RPM_MIN 1000         9

# hover throttle needs tuning when changing payload or battery

################################################################################
# IMU position config, voxl-vision-px4 handles VIO position offset, not px4
################################################################################




1       1       EKF2_ABL_LIM  0.8     9

I had to manually look through all the parameters to make sure they were fine.

Yeah, sometimes QGC doesn't load all of the parameters for whatever reason.

So, things are now working once you added the correct parameters?

Thanks for the input, I will inspect that parameters file to see if there are any incorrect tabs/spaces that can affect it from loading.

stevedan

Yes, things are working fine now. Thanks for the support.@RichieRich