If the GPS receiver was disconnected and no data received, then then the gpsGoodToAlign check did not get a chance to run and becasue it was previously true the EKF would switch back into aiding.
This prevents this by ensuring that gpsGoodToAlign defaults to false when the check is not being performed.
An additional check has also been dded to ensure that there is GPS data to fuse before we declare ready to use GPS.
Switching in and out of aiding modes was being performed in more than one place and was using two variables.
The reversion out of GPS mode due to prolonged loss of GPS was not working.
This consolidates the logic and ensures that PV_AidingMode is only changed by the setAidingMode function.
The filter status logic calculations were being repeated every time the get function was called.
The logic is now updated once per filter update step and a separate get function added
If we start GPS aiding before the gyro bias variances have reduced, glitches on the GPS can cause attitude disturbances that degrade flight accuracy during early flight.
Co-variances were being re-zeroed after being set. This meant that the initial declination learning was sensitive to measurement errors which could result in poor initial yaw accuracy.
Remember the mag bias and earth field states learned during flight when the vehicle lands.
This improves performance for vehicles that do multiple flight on one power cycle
The toilet bowling check during early flight has been removed. This check caused problems where bad compass calibration was the cause of the toilet bowling and resetting to the compass was a bad option. The handling of simultaneous failed mag and velocity innovations is already handled outside the EKF by the failsafe.
A check for yaw errors due to a ground based magnetic anomaly has been introduced.
The logic for in-flight yaw and magnetic field resets has been cleaned up and variable names improved.
Splits in-flight yaw alignment completed status into separate yaw and magnetic field flags.
Reduce the number of places where decisions to perform a yaw and field reset are made.
Don't perform a reset unless there is is data in the buffer
Don't use 3-axis fusion if the field states still need to be reset.
When starting 3-axis fusion request a reset if not previously performed.
Ensure magnetometer and GPs heading resets are alwasy perfomred with data at teh correct time horizon.
The commencement of airspeed fusion could cause pitch errors due to small variances and large innovations. This issue is addressed by the following changes:
1) The airspeed measurement is used to set wind states to a value that reduces initial innovations.
2) The wind state variances are set to values that better reflect the wind speed uncertainty
Change to user adjustable fusion of constant position (as per legacy EKF) instead of constant velocity.
Enable user to specify use of 3-axis magnetometer fusion when operating without aiding.
Don't allow gyro scale factor learning without external aiding data as it can be unreliable
The copter method was being used for plane and the plane method was not being run due to the change in flight status not being detected.
The plane reset method did not trigger if the EKF had already dragged the velocity states along with the GPS or could align to an incorrect heading.
The method has been reworked so that it resets to the GPS course, but only if there are inconsistent angles and large innovations.
To stop a failed magnetometer causing a loss of yaw reference later in flight, if all available sensors have been tried in flight and timed out, then no further magnetoemter data will be used
Down-sample the IMU and output observer state data to 100Hz for storage in the buffer.
This reduces storage requirements for Copter by 75% or 6KB
It does not affect memory required by plane which already uses short buffers due to its 50Hz execution rate.
This means that the EKF filter operations operate at a maximum rate of 100Hz.
The output observer continues to operate at 400Hz and coning and sculling corrections are applied during the down-sampling so there is no loss of accuracy.
If the magnetometer fails innovation consistency checks for too long (currently 10 sec), then the next available sensor approved for yaw measurement will be used.
Vibration in the 400Hz delta angles could cause the angular rate condition check for in-flight magnetic field alignment to fail.
The symptons were failure to start magnetic field learning as expected when EK2_MAG_CAL=3 was set.
Use the more robust, but less accurate compass heading fusion up to 5m altitude
Wait for the magnetometer data fusion time offset to be correct before using data to reset states
Don't reset magnetic field states if the vehicle is rotating rapidly as timing offsets will produce large errors
When doing the yaw angle reset, apply the reset increment to all quaternions stored in the output buffer to avoid transients produced by yaw rotations and the 0.25 second fusion time horizon offset.
Only do the one yaw and mag reset at 5m, not two at 1.5 and 5.0m
Always re-do the yaw and mag reset when leaving the ground.
Because we have changed the yaw angle and have taken a point sample on the magnetic field, covariances associated with the magnetic field states will be invalid and subsequent innovations could cause an unwanted disturbance in roll and pitch.
The reset of the Euler angles to a new yaw orientation was being done using roll and pitch from the output observer states, not the EKF state vector which meant that when roll and pitch were changing, the reset to a new yaw angle would also cause a roll and pitch disturbance.
The legacy EKF switches GPs aiding on on arming, whereas the new EKF switches it on based on GPS data quality.
This means the decision to arm and therefore the predicted solution flags must now reflect the actual status of the navigation solution as it will no longer change when motor arming occurs.
Adds fusion of the declination when there are no earth relative measurements so that the declination angle and therefore the copters yaw angle have an absolute reference.
This enables the length (but not the declination) of the earth field North/East states to change along with the magnetometer offsets.
Provide an option to always do learning
Make field learning decision logic clearer
Change defaults so that plane learns when airborne
Change defaults so that Rover does not learn (large external magnetic interference)
Magnetic interference whilst on the ground can adversely affect filter states. This patch ensures that the simpler and more robust magnetic heading observation method is used until the vehicle has cleared the ground.
Andrew Tridgell
priseborough
Ricardo de Almeida Gonzaga
Paul Riseborough