Failing missions and gliding to ground after adding Raspberry Pi + Camera. Re-run Auto-tune?

QGroundControl
1

Hey everyone,

I’m running into a frustrating issue with my build and could use some of your expertise.

The Background: I built a custom UAV and recently got it dialed in perfectly. Before my latest modification, it was flawlessly executing autonomous flights, including auto-takeoff and auto-land.

The Change: I mounted a Raspberry Pi and a camera to the frame.

The Issue: Ever since adding the Raspi/camera, the UAV fails to complete full missions. Mid-flight, it will sometimes just abandon the mission and glide down to the ground.

My Questions:

1. Should I re-run Auto-tune? Could the added weight and shift in the Center of Gravity (CG) from the Pi and camera be throwing off the PID controllers enough to cause this?

2. Could this be a power issue? Is it possible the Pi is drawing too much power, causing a voltage drop or draining the battery faster than the flight controller expects?

Has anyone experienced something similar when adding a companion computer? Let me know if you need me to upload my flight logs! Thanks in advance.

2

Hi there

Is the companion computer also interfaced with the flight controller, or just for the camera?

  1. Retuning after a hardware change is always a good idea, but should not lead to aborted missions if its not major.
  2. Absolutely. If you have a log, this analysis would be significantly easier though.