This weekend we had wonderful weather and we were out for more testflights. Sadly we soon discovered that my brother's UAVP had a hardware problem. He was able to start but soon after starting his UAVP suddenly nicked into one direction and crashed.

We could reproduce this several time as you can see in the short video below and each time the same happened. We think it could be another unclean soldering pad.

But watch for yourself how Taarek's UAVP crashed:

Direct link: Download the FLV Movie, Download the WMV Movie (8.2MB)

After this unsatisfying result we fetched my UAVP and tried again.

This time the hard work showed!

My UAVP flew way better than any time before. Using the new throttle curve I was able to hoover, nearly fly a full circle (I paniced in the end :}) and I even flew out over the feld and back. It was absolutly amazing how much it gained from the new throttle curve.

Direct link: Download the FLV Movie (27.7MB), Download the WMV Movie (144MB)

I've plotted the new throttle curve and you can see it here:

The new throttle curve doesn't sound so angry like the one before. Compared to the throttle curve Wolfgang implemented in Trunk it still allows optimal hoovering at around 50% and it still allows to reach the maximum throttle by using a steeper gradient in the end which exactly reaches the maximum all the time. The new throttle curve has a parameter L which allows to lower or elevate the curve for different motors while still keeping the input maximum at the maxium output.

After the movie session I took another round and flew until my 5000mAh and my 2500mAh batteries were empty. It was great!

Furthermore I have to mention that I started on my new "fixcoordinate" branch. It will try to decouple nick and roll from yaw and would allow to fly differently.

Imagine flying into one direction while yawing all the while around your own yaw axis? Or a fly-by while the copter turnes to keep one side directly orientated towards another object?

If this sound interesting to you, read my enhancement ticket on dev.uavp.ch. It describes the idea in detail.

Ah, and last but not least:

Are you interested in helping us? Would you like to become an UAVP Developer?

If so, check out the page How To Become UAVP Developer on dev.uavp.ch!