Flying a crazyflie with a payload

Firmware/software/electronics/mechanics
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4rzael
Beginner
Posts: 4
Joined: Fri Apr 21, 2017 1:52 pm

Flying a crazyflie with a payload

Post by 4rzael »

Hello,

I'm currently working on a project where I'd like to have a crazyflie lifting a polystyrene ball, as shown in the picture attached (Picture taken in-flight, so the quality is bad)

As I'm using LPS, I managed to make it hover correctly (even though it oscillates more than a simple drone), and to make really simple and non-violent trajectories (go to this point), but when I try more avanced ones (i.e : Follow a point that follows a circle shape), The drone starts to oscillate dangerously, and then crashes.

It seems logical that the drone behaves differently with the ball, as it changes its weight, center of gravity, moment of inertia, etc...

My first instinct was that I have to tune the pid again to adapt to this new configuration, but as I am a beginner in the quadcopter world, I wasn't sure about it (And I never tuned any PID before).

Has anyone done something similar, is the PID my problem here, or have I missed something ?

Thanks for your help.
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crazyball_cropped.JPG
tobias
Bitcraze
Posts: 2339
Joined: Mon Jan 28, 2013 7:17 pm
Location: Sweden

Re: Flying a crazyflie with a payload

Post by tobias »

That is a big ball for a small CF2 :-)

You could try to tune it while flying manually as a first thing. Start to focus on the PID values for the rate PID for pitch and roll. E.g. first try to just half those values and see if it improves the stability. Also try lowering the attitude PID values a bit. This you can all do live by changing the parameters in the cfclient.
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