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[Paparazzi-devel] Barometer/Altitude Estimate Drift


From: Luke Ionno
Subject: [Paparazzi-devel] Barometer/Altitude Estimate Drift
Date: Fri, 7 Mar 2014 17:22:30 -0500

Hello all,

 

I need a reality check on exactly how good (or bad) an altitude estimate I should be expecting from the V5.0.3 rotary wing branch, using the ‘no_type’ INS, and a LISA/M 2.0, with the MS5611 barometer on an Aspirin 2.2 IMU board.

 

Right now, in a completely static indoor environment (no fans, open windows, etc.)  I’m seeing upwards of 2 meters of altitude estimate drift (always upwards, I might add).  The attached files Static Test 1.jpg and Static Test 2.jpg show roughly 20 minutes of static (motors off) testing; I reset the vertical filter after the end of Static Test 1.jpg, but didn’t cycle power.  Every minute or so, I’d lift the quad up to the ceiling (~2.25 meters up), hold it there for ~10 seconds, and then set it back down.  Over the first 10 minutes, there’s approximately 2.5m of upwards altitude drift, and then another 1.75m over the next 10 minutes.  The overall magnitude of the floor-to-ceiling step input seems consistent, but the absolute altitude estimate drifts quite a bit. 

 

I then took 10 minutes of raw barometer readings, which showed a similar trend, as shown in Static Raw Baro.jpg.  At the end, I threw in a couple floor-ceiling cycles, just to get an estimate of how much drift I was seeing.  (If I were using the raw barometer readings to estimate altitude, the drift over 10 minutes would have been ~1 meter.)  Of course, that’s all with motors off; I did an outdoor tethered-hover test, with a 2m tether, in manual flight mode, recording the raw barometer readings, and got the plot shown in Tethered_Hover_Raw_Baro.jpg; note that at each landing event, the barometer reading has drifted by ~2m in a matter of 60 seconds.  The barometer is well clear of the ESCs and other potential heat sources, and I allow it to acclimate to the outside temperature before flying. 

 

I’ve flown a number of NAV flights with this setup, and they’re quite consistent with the static plots and tethered tests; I’ll start out say, 2-3m AGL, and over a minute or so, it’ll drift downwards by a  couple meters, until it ends up sitting on the ground with the motors idling.  (The vertical loops are well-tuned, it’s that the altitude estimate itself develops errors).  I can bump it up a couple meters, and then it’ll hold for somewhat longer, but it general trends downwards over the course of a 15-20 minute flight by ~4m or so.  As noted before, the aircraft altitude estimate always up, never down.

 

So, are the various drifts shown above normal for a GPS + barometer setup?  Is a +/- 2m altitude estimate simply too much to ask of the system, or do I need to start hunting down sources of vibration/noise, etc.?  Is anybody else experiencing this sort of behavior?

 

Thanks!

 

Regards,

-Luke

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Attachment: Tethered_Hover_Raw_Baro.jpg
Description: JPEG image

Attachment: Static Raw Baro.jpg
Description: JPEG image

Attachment: Static Test 1.jpg
Description: JPEG image

Attachment: Static Test 2.jpg
Description: JPEG image


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