[1.8.0-1.12.5] AtmosphereAutopilot 1.6.1

[kcs123]

Congrats on release

[Pds314]

I'm curious how truly crash-happy a plane I can make stay up with this. Time to find the most maneuverable fighter I have, then empty the front fuel tanks.

Edited January 26, 2016 by Pds314

[Kobymaru]

On 24.1.2016 at 7:24 PM, Boris-Barboris said:

maybe it will even get to CKAN (I left the checkbox on), dunno.

About CKAN:

Bad news is that auto-submission from KerbalStuff -> CKAN is broken.

Good news is, manual submission is fairly simple (and I can do it for you if you like)

Bad news is that the CKAN maintainers are inactive and no submissions get accepted at the moment

 

I'll come back when I have good news.

[Boris-Barboris]

5 minutes ago, Kobymaru said:

I'll come back when I have good news.

Don't bother, I'm stalking your posts anyway. And CKAN is of no importance, I have overshootings to fight, and setpoints to converge to.

[Kobymaru]

1 hour ago, Boris-Barboris said:

Don't bother, I'm stalking your posts anyway. And CKAN is of no importance, I have overshootings to fight, and setpoints to converge to.

By setpoints, you mean like altitude and/or climb rate? If yes, I'm really looking forward to it.

[Boris-Barboris]

2 hours ago, Kobymaru said:

climb rate

Only if someone proves he needs one. Useless feature, imho.

[Kobymaru]

17 minutes ago, Boris-Barboris said:

Only if someone proves he needs one. Useless feature, imho.

Yeah, probably you're right.

But altitude and potentially heading would be important for long-range cruises. Set altitude, heading, speed, and go to lunch.

[Boris-Barboris]

1 minute ago, Kobymaru said:

Set altitude, heading, speed, and go to lunch.

More like open map, set point on planet, height, speed, goto lunch.

[Kobymaru]

2 minutes ago, Boris-Barboris said:

More like open map, set point on planet, height, speed, goto lunch.

That's even better. Happy coding!

[Boris-Barboris]

version v1.4  is up, grab from github or kstuff. Cruise control is there, Koby.

Changelog copypasted:

• max_aoa and max_sideslip binding in settings window bugfix
• Reduced CPU loading
• Fixed MOI calculations
• Tweaked regression again to reduce bucking on sustained turns and move a little bit towards v1.2 behaviour
• GUI compacting and recoloring
• Shift+P hotkey for Autopilot module manager GUI
• Cruise flight controller initial implementation.
• Fly-by-wire keeps pitch moderation off for 2 seconds after take-off.

I had free week, now it's almost over. I'll stick around for two more days for bugfixing and questions. About AA: it's complicated, I have yet to design good director controller (thing that controls velocity vector), current one is mediocre. Maybe later, I hope it will be over before summer.

Edited January 29, 2016 by Boris-Barboris

[Kobymaru]

16 hours ago, Boris-Barboris said:

version v1.4  is up, grab from github or kstuff. Cruise control is there, Koby.

I just tried it, and wow! It works amazing. Thanks for your great work, this is now officially the best flight control you can get in the game (vs stock or any mods).

I will use it in my regular game, and report if I find any bugs.

16 hours ago, Boris-Barboris said:

I have yet to design good director controller (thing that controls velocity vector), current one is mediocre.

Are you talking about speed control? I see some high-frequency/low-amplitude oscillations, but they are purely cosmetic and they hold the speed perfectly well.

[Boris-Barboris]

11 minutes ago, Kobymaru said:

Are you talking about speed control? I see some high-frequency/low-amplitude oscillations, but they are purely cosmetic and they hold the speed perfectly well.

That is thrust controller, I baldly called it cruise control in GUI before and i regret it. Yep, that jitter is price for precisely controlling engines with spooling time. If there was rocket engine, it would be rock solid.

Director is controller, that is taking desired velocity direction and acceleration and outputs aoa, sideslip and roll rate. Speed and acceleration are sufficient for any trajectory definition. It works fine now, but there certanly are craft designs (mostly very big) when director-aoa-roll layer is misbehaving consistently, and there is only my control to blame, regressor is working fine.

Edited January 30, 2016 by Boris-Barboris

[Kobymaru]

Yeah, i think cruise control might need some more work.

I tried enabling it low, and let it climb to setpoint altitude - he tried to climb too fast.

I tried flying up to the setpoint, then enabling it - he immediately went nose-down, and wouldn't stop descending. Are there any log files or data files that you need to debug this?

 

Also, a little note about GUI: I can only access the Settings for Mouse-Directory & Cruise Flight Controller & Standard Fly-By-Wire *after* enabling them via the master switch. I think it would be better if it's possible to set settings first (like setpoints, moderation on/off, rocket mode...) and *then* activate Master Switch.

[Boris-Barboris]

26 minutes ago, Kobymaru said:

I tried enabling it low, and let it climb to setpoint altitude - he tried to climb too fast.

It currently doesn't account for craft thrust limitations. You can limit climb rate with max climb angle, for now set it to something lower.

26 minutes ago, Kobymaru said:

I tried flying up to the setpoint, then enabling it - he immediately went nose-down, and wouldn't stop descending. Are there any log files or data files that you need to debug this?

Craft file and reproduction steps. This sounds like a bug.

First press on master switch allocates memory for controllers, those settings don't exist before turning it on. And what's wrong with turning on FBW and then setting parameters? In what situations it's bad? You can also turn off master switch again if you're 100% sure you want no autopilots active, and then tune stuff.

Edited February 1, 2016 by Boris-Barboris

[Kobymaru]

7 minutes ago, Boris-Barboris said:

It currently doesn't account for craft thrust limitations. You can limit climb rate with max climb angle, for now set it to something lower.

Ok, that sounds good. I will do that.

 

7 minutes ago, Boris-Barboris said:

Craft file and reproduction steps. This sounds like a bug.

I'll do it when I have time.

 

7 minutes ago, Boris-Barboris said:

First press on master switch allocates memory for controllers, those settings don't exist before turning it on. And what's wrong with turning on FBW and then setting parameters? In what situations it's bad? 

Situation 1: Load craft in orbit. Position nose on radial. Enable Master switch, but now moderation is on! Craft nosedives onto prograde vector.
Situation 2: Take off without AA. Enable AA, but now the previous settings were loaded!

Ok, maybe those are rare cases. I think you're right with not loading them until needed.

For me, it's a "principle" thing: before activating a device, I like to set the settings first, before it starts doing something random.Let's see what other users are going to say.

[Boris-Barboris]

11 hours ago, Kobymaru said:

Load craft in orbit. Position nose on radial. Enable Master switch, but now moderation is on! Craft nosedives onto prograde vector.

Moderation is never applied below certain dynamic pressure (around 60 km height on 2km\s speed on Kerbin).

11 hours ago, Kobymaru said:

Take off without AA. Enable AA, but now the previous settings were loaded!

And FBW keeps plane flying straight until you enter settings you like, besides, default ones are good for almost everything.

11 hours ago, Kobymaru said:

I like to set the settings first, before it starts doing something random.

Nothing random here at least, defined behaviour. If craft with such name is controlled first time, default settings with full moderation are loaded, 15 AoA, 15 G limits. If there is such craft config in design folder, saved settings are loaded. And don't be afraid of taking off with FBW on, as well as keeping FBW on in space.

11 hours ago, Kobymaru said:

I'll do it when I have time.

When having a bug, keep pitch angular vel gui, flight model gui with pitch trainer window, and director gui open, that way a screenshot of the moment when you think it fails would be very informative.

Edited February 2, 2016 by Boris-Barboris

[Kobymaru]

7 minutes ago, Boris-Barboris said:

Moderation is never applied below certain dynamic pressure (around 60 km height on 2km\s speed on Kerbin).

Cool! I didn't know. I'll try out again.

 

Quote

When having a bug, keep pitch angular vel gui, flight model gui with pitch trainer window, and director gui open, that way a screenshot of the moment when you think it fails would be very informative.

I think the bug is just my stupidity. I set 260 m/s, 10 km altitude, and max AoA=9. Aircraft simply could not maintain altitude at this low speed.

Edited February 1, 2016 by Kobymaru

[Boris-Barboris]

21 minutes ago, Kobymaru said:

max AoA=9

You may find yourself moderated straight to the ground on landings with such a restriction. 15 is reasonable minimum for aircrafts, anything less is usually for troublesome designs like unstable rockets.

[Kobymaru]

1 hour ago, Boris-Barboris said:

You may find yourself moderated straight to the ground on landings with such a restriction. 15 is reasonable minimum for aircrafts, anything less is usually for troublesome designs like unstable rockets.

10° is where the body lift off the mk3 cargo bay starts. Drag significantly jumps up at that Mark.

[m4ti140]

This mod is awesome. I pretty much dropped the usage of stock SAS. In fact the stock SAS should be replaced with this. Hell, it made STS replicas stable in ascent.

The only problem I have is that it seems to go nuts when you give it an aircraft in a standard canard configuration. It sometimes doesn't know what to do and either ignores input or locks itself in max deflection. The latter often happens at high angles of attack. But this high is typically something like 8-10 degrees. Going beyond that (which happens often and close to stall with delta wings designed for low speed landings) results in controlls locking up in maximum pitch down position and LOCV.

 

 

 

[Boris-Barboris]

@m4ti140 it doesn't sound like AA i know. Well, there are some rare cases when it does that for me, but probability is low, and simply turning off moderation for 3-4 seconds and warming it up solves it, i don't really remember having this after 1.3.

How did you install it, do you use 1.4 version, and what files and folders do you see in AA folder (make sure it has csurf_sync.cfg, dll, global_settings.txt, designs folder)? If the installation will be correct, if you use stock bugfix modules read a little note about compatibility in the OP. Then open your output_log and search for AtmosphereAutopilot from the ending, you may find some exceptions. If abovementioned won't help you, pic of the simplest problematic (stock parts preferably) plane and screenshot of the moment when the bug happens with flight model, pitch trainer, pitch ang vel GUIs open.

 

Edited February 8, 2016 by Boris-Barboris

[Kobymaru]

Not sure if you care, but maybe you like data.

Just a little Testing. Using this craft:

Spoiler

I climbed to 21000m manually with Fly-By-Wire enabled, then I slightly leveled of (not completely). Exactly when reaching 21km, I turned on cruise control. The result was a bit rolling around (pic here and here), I assume that's because I wasn't exactly on 90° heading. He obviously overshot but then he caught himself and levelled off at 21 km nicely (pic here).

Then I set the cruise altitude to 22000 km, and he climbed slowly but nicely (no overshoot!) to 22 km (pic here).

Here's a plot from my own flight logger:

Raw data is here: https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/1414175/ksp/aa-cruise-dive.csv

 

Sorry for spam. Still love your mod.

Edited February 10, 2016 by Kobymaru

[TheSealBrigade]

Great! Now I dont have to sit and play with the throttle during my big Kerbin science grinds!

[Boris-Barboris]

17 minutes ago, Kobymaru said:

Sorry for spam. Still love your mod.

Gratz with success on rpc front. Don't worry about telemetry, quarter of the git repo code are tools to model, simulate and record. To diagnose issues, raw data is rarely usefull, what matters is controller's and model state, wich is best observed via GUI. On it's behaviour in your case, I see no serious problems, your guess about roll is correct: course was not strictly 90. Exscessive rolling is caused by the fact you didn't roll on ascent, so it didn't know the craft quite well.

[Kobymaru]

So I have to "train" the craft on ascent? Are there recommended maneuvers? Maybe a way to store training between flight?

Also, does training from Fly-By-Wire carry over to cruise?