Troubleshooting
Troubleshooting Tree
| Symptom | Possible Causes | Action |
|---|---|---|
Blue boom LED and loud motor beeping | Parameter structure is corrupted | |
QGC has a lot of red tabs. Aircraft profile seems to be deleted. | Parameter structure is corrupted | |
Preflight Fail: High Accelerometer Bias | If you fly around with no issues, and then land and then get this error, then its most likely a bug in PX4 Software. | Reboot/power cycle the aircraft |
If you get this error with a fresh boot before taking off and doing accelerometer calibration does not make the issue go away, then its most likely that the temp cal of the aircraft is not present | ||
Abrupt motions in autonomous missions, causing problem in capturing Lidar data | Lack of smooth mission execution in flight controller |
Parameter Corruption/Reset Issue
What is it? — There is a hardware defect combined with a PX4 bug that applies to all blue and black cube flight controllers where a very specific set of power conditions can occur within the memory chip of the flight controller, causing it to become corrupted. When this happens, the parameters become reset.
How to prevent? — Make sure that the unit never gets a quick power on/off, but whenever you connect the unit to USB power, etc, to always allow sufficient time for it to boot. Then if you power it off, wait 10-30 seconds before re-starting to avoid the issue.
How to fix? Follow Alta X Recovery Instructions to reset back to default firmware and parameter profiles.
Abrupt Motions in Autonomous Missions
Issue: The PX4 version that is used with the Alta X does not have smooth motion planning for autonomous missions. This can lead to sudden jerky movements that make capturing data with Lidars very challenging.
Solution: Actual solution to this requires a major upgrade for the PX4 firmware for Alta X. This has been in our roadmap and we are still working on it.
Workaround:
Survey missions in QGC creates waypoints that have sharp turns. Combined with the lack of smoothing at motion execution of the flight controller, it creates abrupt motions.
Potential workaround for this issue is to manually create waypoint missions with some segments to create curves. See the image below. You can test the following with your setup:
Create a waypoint mission that has straight segments, 90 degree turns, and then another straight segment, like a normal survey, pic attached. Make sure the short segments are at least 20m apart.
Set the MIS_YAW_ERR parameter to 90, and setting NAV_ACC_RAD to 3. You can increase NAV_ACC_RAD to see how it affects the flight behavior.
! As always take extreme caution when adjusting parameter settings. !
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