Arducopter Auto Pid Tuning

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Jan 18, 2015  My method for tuning arducopter 3.2. Will work on both APM or Pixhawk. Note: Once you’ve finished tuning, you can add STAB RATE P to the CH6 dial; this is good way of adjusting the flight characteristics without breaking the PID’s! Jun 17, 2017  Hello Dev Team I have to PID-Tune a new 10kg heavy quadcopter. I think i will get better results with manual PID tuning, as I did on a lighter frame last time. If I go for a 10kg quad, can I start with the standard pids of ardu copter 3.4.6? Or should i lower the values first? Does anyone have recent experience with doing the same on a heavier quad recently? Best wishes, Severin. The PID-controllers are often badly tuned, since it is too timeconsuming to calculate good PID-parameters at the time of deployment. A simple way of finding PID-parameters that give faster control loops is needed. To solve this problem the thesis proposes an autotuner based on the areamethod Method of Moments and the AMIGO tuning rules. Sep 13, 2019  ArduPlane, ArduCopter, ArduRover source. Contribute to ArduPilot/ardupilot development by creating an account on GitHub. Jun 22, 2016  Make sure you watch the tuning video at the bottom of the page to get a better understanding visually of how changing the PID settings affect your drone. I know the video is old and the drone I’m using is massive but it still illustrates the main effects of changing parameters.

Setting the aircraft up ready for tuning¶

The following parameters should be set correctly based on the specifications of your aircraft.

Battery setting¶

Parameters used to linearise your motor thrust curve.

  • MOT_BAT_VOLT_MAX : 4.2v x No. Cells
  • MOT_BAT_VOLT_MIN : 3.3v x No. Cells
  • MOT_THST_EXPO : 0.55 for 5 inch props, 0.65 for 10 inch props, 0.75 for 20 inch props. This parameter should be derived by thrust stand measurements for best results (don’t trust manufacturer data).

Motors setup¶

Parameters used to define the output range sent to the ESC.

  • MOT_PWM_MAX : Check ESC manual for fixed range or 2000us
  • MOT_PWM_MIN : Check ESC manual for fixed range or 1000us
  • MOT_SPIN_ARM : use the motor test feature
  • MOT_SPIN_MAX : 0.95
  • MOT_SPIN_MIN : use the motor test feature
  • MOT_THST_HOVER : 0.25 or below the expected hover thrust percentage (low is safe)

PID Controller Initial Setup¶

  • INS_ACCEL_FILTER : 10Hz to 20Hz
  • INS_GYRO_FILTER : 80Hz for 5 inch props, 40Hz for 10 inch props, 20Hz for 20 inch props
  • ATC_ACCEL_P_MAX : 110000 for 10 inch props, 50000 for 20 inch props, 20000 for 30 inch props
  • ATC_ACCEL_R_MAX : 110000 for 10 inch props, 50000 for 20 inch props, 20000 for 30 inch props
  • ATC_ACCEL_Y_MAX : 27000 for 10 inch props, 18000 for 20 inch props, 9000 for 30 inch props
  • ACRO_YAW_P : 0.5 x ATC_ACCEL_Y_MAX / 4500

For Copter-4.0 (and later):

  • ATC_RAT_PIT_FLTD : INS_GYRO_FILTER / 2
  • ATC_RAT_PIT_FLTT : INS_GYRO_FILTER / 2
  • ATC_RAT_RLL_FLTD : INS_GYRO_FILTER / 2
  • ATC_RAT_RLL_FLTT : INS_GYRO_FILTER / 2
  • ATC_RAT_YAW_FLTE : 2
  • ATC_RAT_YAW_FLTT : INS_GYRO_FILTER / 2

For Copter-3.6 (and earlier):

  • ATC_RAT_PIT_FILT : INS_GYRO_FILTER / 2
  • ATC_RAT_RLL_FILT : INS_GYRO_FILTER / 2
  • ATC_RAT_YAW_FILT : 2

The initial tune of the aircraft should be done in the aircrafts most agile configuration. This generally means that the aircraft will be at its minimum take off weight with fully charged batteries.

Pilot’s preparation for first flight¶

The first takeoff of an untuned multirotor is the most dangerous seconds of the aircraft’s life. This is where the aircraft could be very unstable causing a sudden increase in power when then results in the aircraft jumping into the air, or it may be so poorly tuned that you have insufficient control over the aircraft once it is airborne. The pilot should be extremely diligent during the tuning flights to avoid a situation that could result in injury or damage.

There are several things that the pilot can do to minimise the risk during the early tuning process:

  1. The pilot should conduct a motor number and orientation check (see Checking the motor numbering with the Mission Planner Motor test). Care should be taken to ensure that the correct frame type is selected. Incorrect frame type can result in a very fast yaw rotation or complete loss of control. Take note of the output percentage required to spin the propellers and ensure that:
  • MOT_SPIN_ARM is set high enough to spin the motors cleanly.
  • MOT_SPIN_MIN is set high enough to spin the motors win a minimal level of thrust.
  1. All flights after a significant tuning change should be done in Stabilize. Stabilize provides the pilot with significantly more control over the aircraft in the event that the attitude controllers are unstable.
  2. The pilot should not take off in AltHold until the altitude controller has been tested in flight. This should be done by taking off in Stabilize and switching to Alt Hold. While Alt Hold is rarely a problem unless the aircraft has a very low hover throttle.
  3. For the initial flights the pilot should ensure that these parameters are set:
  • ATC_THR_MIX_MAN to 0.1
  • MOT_THST_HOVER to 0.25 (or lower than the expected hover throttle)
  1. Use a radio and calibrate the radio correctly (see Radio Control Calibration).
  2. Configure an Emergency Stop Motors switch and test it (see Auxiliary Functions).
  3. Do tuning flights in low-wind condition and normal weather (no rain and between 15°C/59°F and 25°C/77°F).
  4. Practice STABILIZE flight in simulator or on a low-end drone first, you should be confident to be able to takeoff and land with your untuned aircraft.

First Flight¶

The first take off is the most dangerous time for any multirotor. Care must be taken to ensure the aircraft is not destroyed in the first seconds of flight and nobody is injured.

  • Ensure that all spectators are at a safe distance.
  • Ensure the pilot is at a safe distance and position.
  • The pilot should refresh themselves on the method used to disarm the aircraft (using Auxiliary Functions for Motor Interlock or Arm/Disarm may be beneficial).

This flight will allow to setup your aircraft in a “flyable for tuning” state.

  1. Ensure the aircraft is in STABILIZE mode
  2. Arm the aircraft
  3. Immediately disarm the aircraft to ensure your disarm procedure is correct
  4. Arm the aircraft
  5. Slowly increase the throttle looking for signs of oscillation. (long or flexible landing gear may cause some landing gear oscillation that will only go away after the aircraft leaves the ground)
  6. As soon as the aircraft lifts off the ground immediately put the aircraft back down as gently as possible
  7. Disarm the aircraft
  8. Evaluate what you observed to decide if you need to make adjustments to the tuning parameters or if it is safe to take off again
  9. Arm and increase the throttle to initiate a takeoff
  10. Hover at approximately 1m altitude and apply small (5 degrees) control inputs into roll and pitch
  11. Immediately land if any oscillation is observed

Next section will explain how to remove the oscillations.

Initial aircraft tune¶

The first priority when tuning an multirotor aircraft is to establish a stable tune, free of oscillations, that can be used to do further tests.

  1. Arm the aircraft in STABILIZE
  2. Increase the throttle slowly until the aircraft leaves the ground
  3. If the aircraft starts to oscillate immediately abort the takeoff and/or land the aircraft
  4. Reduce all the following parameters by 50%

This process is repeated until the aircraft can hover without oscillations being detectable visually or audibly.

If the aircraft has very long or flexible landing gear then you may need to leave the ground before ground resonance stops.

Be aware that in this state the aircraft may be very slow to respond to large control inputs and disturbances. The pilot should be extremely careful to put minimal stick inputs into the aircraft to avoid the possibility of a crash.

Test AltHold¶

This test will allow to test the altitude controller and ensure the stability of your aircraft.

  1. Check MOT_HOVER_LEARN is set to 2. This will allow the controller to learn by itself the correct hover value when flying.
  2. Take off in STABILIZE and increase altitude to 5m. Switch to AltHold and be ready to switch back to STABILIZE. If the aircraft is hovering at a very low hover throttle value you may hear a reasonably fast oscillation in the motors. Ensure the aircraft has spent at least 30 seconds in hover to let the hover throttle parameter converge to the correct value. Land and disarm the aircraft.
  3. Set these parameters on ground and preferably disarm (A confident pilot could set them in flight with GCS or CH6 tuning knob):
  • PSC_ACCZ_I to 2 x MOT_THST_HOVER
  • PSC_ACCZ_P to MOT_THST_HOVER

AltHold starts to move up and down the position and velocity controllers may need to be reduced by 50%. These values are: PSC_POSZ_P and PSC_VELZ_P.

Evaluating the aircraft tune¶

Most pilots will look to move to Autotune as quickly as possible once their aircraft can hover safely in AltHold. Before Autotune is run the pilot should ensure that the current tune is good enough to recover from the repeated tests run by Autotune. To test the current state of tune:

  1. Take off in AltHold or STABILIZE
  2. Apply small roll and pitch inputs. Start with 5 degree inputs and releasing the stick to centre, pitch, left, right, roll forward back, then all 4 points on the diagonal
  3. Increase inputs gradually to full stick deflection
  4. Go to full stick deflection and letting the sticks spring back to centre

If the aircraft begins to overshoot significantly or oscillate after the stick input, halt the tests before the situation begins to endanger the aircraft. The aircraft may require manual tuning (see next section) before autotune can be run.

To test the stabilization loops independent of the input shaping, set the parameter: ATC_RATE_FF_ENAB to 0.

  1. Take off in AltHold or STABILIZE
  2. Hold a roll or pitch input
  3. Release the stick and observe the overshoot as the aircraft levels itself
  4. Gradually increase the stick deflection to 100%

Halt the tests if the aircraft overshoots level significantly or if the aircraft oscillates, the aircraft may require manual tuning (see next section) before autotune can be run.

Set ATC_RATE_FF_ENAB to 1 after the tests are complete.

Manual tuning of Roll and Pitch¶

Manual tuning may be required to provide a stable tune before Autotune is run, or if Autotune does not produce an acceptable tune. The process below can be done on roll and pitch at the same time for a quick manual tune provided the aircraft is symmetrical. If the aircraft is not symmetrical then the process should be repeated for both roll and pitch individually.

The pilot should be especially careful to ensure that ATC_THR_MIX_MAN and MOT_THST_HOVER are set correctly before manual tuning is started.

When oscillations start do not make large or sudden stick inputs. Reduce the throttle smoothly to land the aircraft while using very slow and small roll and pitch inputs to control the aircraft position.

  1. Increase the D term in steps of 50% until oscillation is observed
  2. Reduce the D term in steps of 10% until the oscillation disappears
  3. Reduce the D term by a further 25%
  4. Increase the P term in steps of 50% until oscillation is observed
  5. Reduce the P term in steps of 10% until the oscillation disappears
  6. Reduce the P term by a further 25%

Each time the P term is changed set the I term equal to the P term. Those parameters can be changed on ground and preferably disarmed. A confident pilot could set them in flight with GCS or CH6 tuning knob.

The ch6 tuning knob may be used to make these adjustments. If this is done set the minimum value of the tuning range to the current safe value and the upper range to approximately 4 times the current value. Be careful not to move the slider before the parameter list is refreshed to recover the set value. Ensure the ch6 tuning is switched off before setting the parameter value or the tuning may immediately overwrite it.

Autotune¶

If the aircraft appears stable enough to attempt autotune follow the instructions in the autotune page.

There a number of problems that can prevent Autotune from providing a good tune. Some of the reason autotune can fail are:

  • High levels of gyro noise.
  • Incorrect value of MOT_THST_EXPO.
  • Flexible frame or payload mount.
  • Overly flexible vibration isolation mount.
  • Non-linear ESC response.
  • Very low setting for MOT_SPIN_MIN.
  • Overloaded propellers or motors.

If Autotune has failed you will need to do a manual tune.

Some signs that Autotune has been successful are:

Pid Tuning Methods

  • An increase in the values of ATC_ANG_PIT_P and ATC_ANG_RLL_P.
  • ATC_RAT_PIT_D and ATC_RAT_RLL_D are larger than AUTOTUNE_MIN_D.

Autotune will attempt to tune each axis as tight as the aircraft can tolerate. In some aircraft this can be unnecessarily responsive. A guide for most aircraft:

  • ATC_ANG_PIT_P should be reduced from 10 to 6
  • ATC_ANG_RLL_P should be reduced from 10 to 6
  • ATC_ANG_YAW_P should be reduced from 10 to 6
  • ATC_RAT_YAW_P should be reduced from 1 to 0.5
  • ATC_RAT_YAW_I : ATC_RAT_YAW_P x 0.1

These values should only be changed if Autotune produces higher values. Small aerobatic aircraft may prefer to keep these values as high as possible.

Setting the input shaping parameters¶

Arducopter has a set of parameters that define the way the aircraft feels to fly. This allows the aircraft to be set up with a very aggressive tune but still feel like a very docile and friendly aircraft to fly.

The most important of these parameters is:

  • ACRO_YAW_P : yaw rate x 45 degrees/s
  • ANGLE_MAX : maximum lean angle
  • ATC_ACCEL_P_MAX : Pitch rate acceleration
  • ATC_ACCEL_R_MAX : Roll rate acceleration
  • ATC_ACCEL_Y_MAX : Yaw rate acceleration
  • ATC_ANG_LIM_TC : Aircraft smoothing time

Autotune will set the ATC_ACCEL_P_MAX, ATC_ACCEL_R_MAX and ATC_ACCEL_Y_MAX parameters to their maximum based on measurements done during the Autotune tests. These values should not be increased beyond what Autotune suggests without careful testing. In most cases pilots will want to reduce these values significantly.

For aircraft designed to carry large directly mounted payloads, the maximum values of ATC_ACCEL_P_MAX, ATC_ACCEL_R_MAX and ATC_ACCEL_Y_MAX should be reduced based on the minimum and maximum takeoff weight (TOW):

  • ATC_ACCEL_P_MAX x (min_TOW / max_TOW)
  • ATC_ACCEL_R_MAX x (min_TOW / max_TOW)
  • ATC_ACCEL_Y_MAX x (min_TOW / max_TOW)

ACRO_YAW_P should be set to be approximately 0.5 x ATC_ACCEL_Y_MAX / 4500 to ensure that the aircraft can achieve full yaw rate in approximately half a second.

ATC_ANG_LIM_TC may be increased to provide a very smooth feeling on the sticks at the expense of a slower reaction time.

Aerobatic aircraft should keep the ATC_ACCEL_P_MAX, ATC_ACCEL_R_MAX and ATC_ACCEL_Y_MAX provided by autotune and reduce ATC_ANG_LIM_TC to achieve the stick feel desired by the pilot. For pilots wanting to fly ACRO the following input shaping parameters can be used to tune the feel of ACRO:

The full list of input shaping parameters are:

Advanced Tuning¶

Arducopter has an extremely flexible controller design that can been used with great results on aircraft from 100g to 500 kg. There are a number of difficult control problems that provide a greater depth of understanding that can be provided here. Some of these issues include:

  • High gyro noise levels
  • Flexible airframes
  • Soft vibration dampers
  • Large payloads on flexible or loose mounts
  • Rate limited actuators
  • Non-Linear actuators
  • Extremely aggressive or dynamic flight

Here you will finally learn how to tune a quadcopter once and for all!

If you’ve searched google for a good PID tuning guide, chances are you already have a quadcopter and you’re probably starting to learn to fly. There’s only one problem. Your drone just doesn’t fly as good as the ones you see in those amazing FPV drone racing and freestyle videos.

You may have already tried looking into PID tuning and discovered that it’s just too hard to truly understand. Well, today I’m going to show you that you don’t have to technically understand what PID is to properly tune a quadcopter! Make sure you watch the tuning video at the bottom of the page to get a better understanding visually of how changing the PID settings affect your drone. I know the video is old and the drone I’m using is massive but it still illustrates the main effects of changing parameters.

Before getting started, you should know that every multi rotor is going to have different components that allow for different levels of tunability, but I’m going to assume that you have a small DIY FPV build and you want it to fly as fast, smooth and precise as possible. If that is the case then this guide will be perfect for you.

The Basics

If you’re a super nerd and you understand advanced math concepts, you can learn all about PID by finding a class about control theory. But for the rest of us, there’s no point even trying to fully understand PID because you’ll spend more time learning new math than actually learning how to tune a quadcopter.

PID is basically a specific function inside your flight controller that is responsible for stabilizing your drone. In order to tune a quadcopter, you have to give the PID function some useful parameters to go off of so it knows how it should behave. Honestly, it doesn’t matter what PID stands for, because most flight controllers and tutorials refer to the settings by using the acronyms anyway. I’m not going over the actual meanings behind the words because that would be too hard to understand for a lot of people, so just remember that PID stands for “proportional, integral and derivative” incase someone asks you.

Start the Tuning Process With CG

Before you start tuning, you should make sure that you have a quadcopter worthy of being tuned. One thing that most people don’t realize is that PID tuning is only half of the tuning process.

The first thing that I do before tuning is find the CG (get it balanced). Even the best quadcopter out there is going to fly terrible if the CG is really off, so don’t overlook this subject.

Every object that has mass will have a center-of-gravity (otherwise known as CG). to find the CG of a spoon for example, just simply place different points of the spoon on your finger until you get it to balance itself. you’ll notice that the CG of a spoon isn’t actually located at the center of the spoon, but closer to the bowl instead. However, if you try balancing a pencil you’ll notice that the CG is much closer to the center of the object.

On a quadcopter, every aspect of flying is handled by the four rotors, so the idea is to get the CG as close to the center of all four motors as possible. Usually the flight controller is also located perfectly between all of the motors, so you can use that as a reference for where the CG needs to be. To change the CG of a quadcopter, all you need to do is move the flight battery forward or backward depending on which direction you want the CG to be moved. If you still can’t get the CG perfectly centered, try moving other parts like the video transmitter, HD camera or even the video transmitter antenna.

Arducopter Auto Pid Tuning Kit

When adjusting the CG of an FPV quadcopter, you’re mainly focusing on the forward/backward direction, but on some frame designs where all of the electronics are stacked on top of each other (including the battery and camera) you might need to worry about CG in the up/down direction instead.

Lower Your Angular Mass

Angular mass (or rotational inertia) is basically just how much force is needed to rotate an object around its center of gravity. A great example of this is to spin in circles with your arms extended all the way out and then do the same thing with them in. You’ll notice that it’s much harder to spin with your arms out. This is because your arms have to physically travel much faster to achieve the same “angular speed” as they would when their closer to your body.

When a quadcopter is flipping, rolling or even yawing, it will require less force if the angular mass is lowered. In other words, flipping and yawing will be more precise and in some cases even faster. The question is how do you lower the angular mass of a drone? Well it’s really simple! Just move all of the components as close to the center of gravity as possible. For example, if you find that the battery needs to be pushed really far back to get the CG right, try moving the HD camera (located at the front) and the battery (located at the back) closer to the CG point (where the flight controller usually is).

Angular mass isn’t as Important as CG but it definitely makes a noticeable difference for me when flying.

Don’t Forget the Props

It’s common sense that changing any of the electronics on a drone (mainly the motors, ESCs and flight controller) will always effect how it flies, but people tend to forget how much of a difference props can make. I know that a lot of people like the bullnose prop style, but if you’re doing anything other than racing I wouldn’t recommend them and here’s why.

bullnose props create more thrust than something like an HQ 5x4x3 with the cost of losing efficiency, however they also lose precision. Because the bullnose props will spin at a lower RPM to generate the same amount of thrust as an HQ prop, your ESCs will be sending pulses to the motors at a lower frequency which means there will be less resolution to work with. This isn’t that much of an issue though.

The biggest issue with bullnose props is the increased weight and angular mass. Anything that needs to speed up and slow down really fast should have a low angular mass, so by putting extra weight on the tips of a prop, you’re really just slowing down how fast the quad can make corrections when flying. Did I mention that you will also have more vibrations because of the extra weight if you don’t balance them?

So to some up what I’m trying to say, just get some HQ 5x4x3 props (not the bullnose props) if you’re main flying style is not racing and you want the best tuning experience.

Getting Back To PID Tuning

I’m going to start off by saying that there isn’t a simple and perfectly easy way of tuning a quadcopter, but I’ll try to take you through “my process of tuning” that seems to be working really well lately.

You won’t need to understand how PID technically works before going out and tuning, but you will need to know how to change parameters of the PID loop to get the effects that you want. To achieve this I’m going to give you a set of concepts to remember that will hopefully give you the knowledge to not only get a good tune, but also come to your own conclusions when tuning in the future.

Lets start with the concept that PID doesn’t stand for “proportional, integral, derivative”. Instead lets say PID stands for “power, inspiration, dampening”. You will understand why I’m saying this later, but for now just go with it!

The P value is literally the first and most fundamental part of any control loop. All PID controllers have what’s called a current value (in this case it’s the current orientation of the drone) and a desired value (the orientation that it wants to be at). When you move the control stick on your transmitter in a particular direction, you actually aren’t the one making the drone move. You’re actually just changing the desired orientation and the PID loop figures out how much power each motor needs to get the drone pointed in the direction you want. So getting back to what P does, it really just uses more force to get the drone where it needs to be depending on how far away it currently is from the desired orientation. In simple terms, if you want the drone to make corrections at a faster pace, turn up the P.

Now that you understand the concept of a current orientation and desired orientation, and P is no longer a mystery, lets move on to the I value. In a perfect world with no errors or variables like wind, a PID loop wouldn’t actually need an I value. In the real world we need I though. Without I, any outside force like wind or gravity would make it impossible to keep a drone at a specific orientation. Because P simply scales itself depending on how far it is from it’s target, it doesn’t care if it gets to the desired orientation in less than a second or ten years! This is where I comes in. Instead of scaling based on position, I scales itself based on how long it isn’t at the desired orientation. You could think of I as an inspirational value. The more I you have, the more inspiration your drone will have to stay where it needs to be or get to it’s new orientation (stay on track and achieve it’s goals).

D is a more complicated value to understand, but what it does is very simple. With P and I in the control loop, your quadcopter will have plenty of power and inspiration to go places, but without some focus or dampening it’s going to bounce all over the place like it’s had too much coffee or red bull to drink. The problem with P and I is that they just don’t know when to slow down and think, so D just dampens their effects.

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In technical terms, D works by using the mathematical difference between the current acceleration towards a desired value and a previous acceleration towards a desired value. That difference is then mixed in with P and I to dampen/cancel out their effects. Like I said earlier, you don’t need to understand the technical details, just remember that D dampens and smooths out the effects of P and I.

The Tuning Process

Before tuning, I start out with settings that are either default, or that I know won’t cause any strange unwanted behavior. In the old days of tuning, it was a common practice to start out with a very low or even no D value at all, but now it’s better to leave everything at the defaults until you see how it flies.

Start off by taking off and seeing what happens. If the quadcopter moves and feels like an unstable boat, raise the P setting (vary slowly) until it starts to behave more like a robot. When the P setting is set high enough, the overall flight at this point should be pretty smooth, but at the end of aggressive maneuvers, the quadcopter may shake for a split second. This is fine, unless the shaking continues. If it sounds very twitchy even when not touching the controls, you should probably lower it until the motors sound smooth again when hovering.

Once the drone seems stable enough to fly around safely, you should be able to take it to a park or open space to try some FPV flying. Don’t forget to mount your HD camera of choice and press the record button before taking off. It also helps to record at 60FPS so you have more frames in the video to look at. once your flying using FPV, take it up high and do some flips and rolls. Try to keep your control inputs short and fast but also precise so you don’t have to figure out the difference between PID loop issues and your stick input mistakes.

After flying, take the footage that you recorded from the camera and play it back on your computer. once you get to a point in the video where the drone is flipping or rolling, stop the footage and analyze it frame by frame (if you can). This is the best way to really understand what your aircraft is doing.

Arducopter Auto Pid Tuning Tool

At this point you can start asking yourself questions like “is it holding angles properly or should I turn the I gain up?”, “does the drone look like it has too much dampening or maybe not enough?”. Is the problem I’m having a PID issue, or could it be e limitation of the hardware I’m using?”.

One thing that I like to do is leave my D gain relatively low so that I can better analyze what’s happening with my P and I gains. Once everything is how I want it then I’ll turn D back up. For smooth flying, slowly increase the D setting until you no longer see the shake at the end of aggressive maneuvers that you saw when tuning the P and I gains. Don’t go too high with the D setting or it will behave like a slug.

To sum everything up, you start tuning P (the power output), then I (to give it some inspiration to stay on track), then D (keeping it smooth and focused to avoid overshooting).

What Is Throttle PID Attenuation (TPA)

After tuning, you might find that your drone shakes when flying at full throttle. I’m honestly not completely sure why this happens, but I think it’s because the power output of the motors becomes more sensitive at higher RPMs. In any case, TPA will help reduce the shaking by scaling down the PID values when the throttle is raised passed a specified point.

On the Kiss FC (flight controller) you have a lot more options for TPA than CF (Cleanflight) and it can be a bit complicated to understand, so I’ll talk about Cleanflight first. In the CF configurator, all you need to do is slowly turn up the TPA value until the drone stops shaking at high throttle ranges. If it still shakes, try lowering the TPA breakpoint value.

TPA breakpoint controls how high the throttle needs to be before TPA starts to take effect. In CF this value is usually around 1500. By lowering the TPA breakpoint, you’re basically just getting the TPA to activate sooner (at a lower motor speed).

Going over to the Kiss FC, things work a bit differently. In the Kiss configurator, TPA is actually a value that you turn down instead of up. You get three separate TPA values. There’s a TPA value for P, a value for I and a value for D. To add more TPA, all you need to do is lower all three TPA PID values. The cool thing about Kiss is that these TPA values actually just represent a percentage, so when you see a TPA value like 0.3 then you know that the PID will be at 30% of its original power (or whatever your PID is times 0.3).

The last thing I want to mention is that Kiss does have an equivalent to TPA breakpoint in CF, but it’s more complex so don’t worry about it unless you absolutely have to. Usually you won’t need to use it because the default TPA breakpoint settings for Kiss seem to work better than CF anyway.

How To Master The Tuning Process

Arducopter Auto Pid Tuning Chart

Tuning drones can take a long time. Some might even say it’s an on going process, but there are some things you can do to make it easier. One thing that helps is separating flying days from tuning days. When you go out for a day of tuning, you’re one and only goal should be to get your quadcopter tuned. This means bring your laptop, a ton of batteries and only stay in the air long enough to do the maneuvers that you need for analyzing the video frames. You should spend all day flying, analyzing, adjusting and flying again. It also helps to watch videos of other people flying and compare their tunes side by side with yours. Strive to achieve tuning results that are similar or equal to the best pilots out there. You’ll find that it’s much easier to pull off more complex maneuvers and learn new ones when your drone does exactly what you want it to do.