Unable to Locate Airframe 15001 Esky (Big) Lama v4

bayetan · March 4, 2023, 3:26pm

Hello All,

I’m trying to get my custom coaxial helicopter to fly but is unable to find the necessary airframe file 15001 for reference. Its also nolonger in the Airframe Reference page on the website or in the ROMFS directory. Does anyone know where I can get some information in it?

Thanks,
Ben

Edit: It looks like the older PX4-sutopilot-release-1.12.3 has airframe 15001 so I guess I’ll stick with that version. I think it might have something to do with changes to Airframe definition with the upcoming 1.14 but I though 1.13 was supposed to default to traditional method. Currently not what that is all about so not sure.

JulianOes · March 5, 2023, 10:49pm

I assume no one maintained and tested the coax setup and so it was removed. You would have to read about the new dynamic mixing and control allocation and check if you can implement it that way.

Maybe @MaEtUgR knows how this could be done.

bayetan · March 6, 2023, 5:35pm

Thanks for the input! I wanted to ask for some advise as well. I’m new to drones and trying to buiild a custom frame similiar to airframe 15001 with CubeBlack 2.1, custom motors and VESC motor drivers over UAVCAN. Should I go with older v1.13 or stick main? Also, I need to spend more time with existing documentation but current UAVCAN commands monitored using Babel are not where I expected them to be with no roll/pitch/yaw inputs from the RF controller when just testing interface while still on the ground. I would like to monitor the various parameters in the flight controller. Is MavLink the best way to achieve this? Is there a manual that I can refer to. It seems like almost every command that I enter to the “nsh>” prompt is being rejected. Standard commands execute fine but “built-in” Apps dont work.

Thanks,
Ben

JulianOes · March 6, 2023, 9:30pm

Please stick to the thread topic or create a new thread for different topics. Otherwise this is way too confusing for me.

bayetan · March 6, 2023, 10:21pm

Thanks! I’ll create new topics in the future. And the problem with unknow MAVLink nsh commands were solved simply by rebootting the fligth controller.

MaEtUgR · January 4, 2024, 11:31am

For reference on this topic:
Coaxial helicopter support was readded on Main last autumn:

github.com/PX4/PX4-Autopilot

Coaxial Helicopter Support

PX4:main ← PX4:maetugr/coaxial-heli

opened 02:31PM - 14 Sep 23 UTC

MaEtUgR

+372 -3

### Solved Problem When working on a coaxial fixed collective pitch helicopter …project I added back support in control allocation. ### Solution - Add control allocation airframe (`CA_AIRFRAME`) 12 for coaxial helicopters. - Allow configuring 2 swash plate servos which is not enough for a normal helicopter with collective pitch but necessary to support the fixed collective pitch coaxial helicopters. - Adjust a copy of the helicopter allocation for the coaxial use case. These are separate commits to simplify the review of the history. - Refactor some spacing in the original helicopter allocation. ### Changelog Entry For release notes: ``` Feature: Add back support for coaxial helicopters with the new actuator allocation Documentation: Need to add at least a paragraph to https://docs.px4.io/main/en/frames_helicopter/ ``` ### Alternatives We could also ... ### Test coverage This was successfully tested on two coaxial helicopter prototypes with fixed collective pitch propellers and two swash plate servos. There was no obvious issue with the allocation found. ### Context Coaxial helicopters were supported previously by PX4 with the old mixing system. I have never flown such a vehicle with the previous implementation but added back support. FYI @ryanjAA

This is not contained in the 1.14 release because I was too late but it’s available on the main branch, could be backported if needed and will be in the next release.