Betaflight 4.5 GPS Rescue Improvements

[@amarkentwell2866]

If your interest Mark. INAV's forward speed in RTH is controlled by nav_mc_bank_angle. It requires it to be set higher to penetrate into the wind. Between 25 and 32 degress is an ideal value. Read through the INAV 7.1 release notes. You may be surprised what INAV quadcopter navigation can now do.

[@Chillin-fpv]

I do like the concept of position hold. I hope betaflight will implement that sooner or later

[@kurtzFPV]

It would be nice for when you were far out and heard something nearby that you wanted to check on.

[@Chillin-fpv]

@kurtzFPV right or if you lose video in your goggles. It'll give you time to find it and fly it back LOS

[@serang]

INAV dev (Palwel) said it's easier to implement BF filtering and behavior on INAV than INAV navigation capabilities on BF. INAV autonomous is years ahead o BF.

[@bulufish8208]

At bnf prices give me gpw rescue any day PERIOD..................thank you for your time and effort to make this hobby enjoyable.

[@WindjumbieFPV]

All we need is a waypoint planner, Alt hold/Pos hold in BF and we're golden

[@BrandonBeans]

Testers are being told to install mag/compass and get it working for something coming up. You may just [partly] get your wish!

[@WindjumbieFPV]

@@BrandonBeans yeah you know it's been in the works for some time now..

[@PIDtoolbox]

love the GPS content! really appreciate the work. tbh, I found BF gps rescue return behavior smoother back in 4.2, even though it didnt land

[@johncgibson4720]

You make me doubt if I should upgrade to 4.5. I think Betaflight should not get into landing the craft and waypoints stuff. Navigation should be done with onboard Linux. Zoe FPV has an episode with OpenCV with Linux.

[@RC-Flight]

Very nice! Thanks for taking the time to make this video. 🇨🇦

[@uavtech]

You bet!

[@AndreyZzz]

I use INAV from version 2.0 to 6.1, poshold and return to home works fine. Probably depends on good calibration of the sensors.

[@paulmakesthings]

The thing that always comes to mind when I test any betaflight or inav nav features is just how much worse they are then even the early versions of arducopter . Back in ~2014 I had a tricopter that had perfect poshold and rth along with great autonomous functions. I guess the main limitation with betaflight rth is probably trying to do it without a compass which is a whole different challenge

[@13FPV]

I use rescue just to get me out of skechy shittyations like loss of video or rc link. It puts me back in control in no time. Not worth having a worse flying quad just to land "excactly" where I took off...

[@uavtech]

yup. not really the entire point. just showing the improvement over 4.4

[@always17]

Great comparison. My biggest gripe with Betaflight also has to do with the fact there is no rough position hold. On the oposite end of the spectrum when you are at a higher altitude and initiate GPS Rescue the drift during the descent is ridiculous. My quads end up drifting quite far for a long time as the descent rate will always be slower than ascent rates used.

[@uavtech]

yes, another great point. The assent and decent can kill it.

[@oldneet]

I had tried Betaflight 4.4 and INAV 6.1. The result I had noticed was INAV utilizes the compass and barometer practically.

[@ggrant0311]

Looking forward to your tuned INAV video, everytime i've tried to tune inav as good as BF the hard and fast power loops in INAV get real bad sometimes results in midflight flipouts from the sky... just want to make sure you push it real hard in the tests, hard punchouts with flippy freefalls see if you can get it to go nuts.

[@chd2323]

I put 4.5 on all my quads and the gps landing works perfectly.Set decent rate to 1.2 It lands just as close as my DJI mini 2 half the time lol. The difference between 4.4 and 4.5 is night and day on the gps landing.

[@John_Doe_6996]

Now try on a windy day

[@obadger21]

Oh god. Oh god. Oh no. Where’s it going. Oh no. The sweet sound of GPS rescue 😂

[@johncgibson4720]

GPS rescue would have saved me a lost helicopter 2 years ago during long range and high altitude. At that time, I skipped installing a capacitor to keep my helicopter under 250 grams at that time. And a power spike rendered VTX incapacitated mid air. The VTX sent me a still picture for more than 3 minutes, and I kept it in air for 3 minutes blindfolded. I switched off the motor after 3 minutes to kill the drone because the kinetic energy of a helicopter's rotor was a danger. The altitude was too high to determine where it can drift to in the wind and crash land.

[@upnorthFPVandEUC]

I just don’t miss betaflight.. I left the angle at 45°, but increase the speed to around 35 mph for the return to home and it really smooth things out. I would love to see a pid tune for the iflight Helion 10.

[@RubyS.1]

The optical flow video on the patreon is great. Theres very little info out there for it

[@remyKhuong]

Dont know why….! But beta 4.4.3 work perfect on my 5”❤ worked so smooth.

[@Sugar_K]

not tuning the hover point will lead to the quad wobbling around a lot. and yes it is going into angle mode...

[@BrandonBeans]

BF 4.2 and my drones were "crash to home". 4.3 same. Kinda worked, but don't leave your car parked at the home position during rescue! 4.4 was "land at home but maybe it fly backwards and hit something first". 4.5 is 🤌good and I trust it now.

[@dronesdronesdrones2891]

Did you have the barometer enabled on the betaflight RTH tests? I found that disabling the barometer made the descent portion MUCH smoother. Otherwise it'd descend too quickly and smash the throttle to compensate. Or maybe your barometer foam modification helped smooth out the baro signal.

[@uavtech]

baro was enabled.

[@teksingh4362]

which gps module are you using ?

[@chrisbee5481]

Hey Mark, Just built an 11" drone with 3215 600kv motors and gemfan 1170 props on 8S. I'm kinda dissapointed with that build. The top speed is only 140kmh and flight time is 11min on a 5400mah 8s lipo. 2,3kg AUW. Not sure if those props are inefficient or the ESC settings are bad. It flys well, no issues. Just all I hoped to get out of an 11" build didnt work out. I could get over less top speed, but the flight time is really bad. Don't think better ESC settings will more than double the flight time. Got to try 10" props next. Maybe you have an Idea. Motor Timing 16 deg and pwm 24khz. Thanks alot

[@executioner7400]

What camera unit you use in this video ?

[@uavtech]

DJI v1 in the air flashed with WTFOSD firmware (GoPro Session 5 for any prop sounds you hear). DJI Osmo on the ground.

[@executioner7400]

@@uavtech not o3 air unit in your quad, right?

[@uavtech]

@@executioner7400 correct. NOT an 03 Air Unit.

[@devilsreject78]

I have been flying I have since version 5.0 I'm relatively new to it but I fly now on my long-range drone and on version 7.0 the return to home and position hold function work perfectly even though I was having issues with return to home I have since got it all figured out I had made some changes settings changes and it messed it all up once I put it back to the way it was and now it's amazing

[@sten6537]

Hi! Could you repeat the test with BF 4.5 & a GPS with compass (magnetometer)? Im really interested in the calibration and RTH test.

[@flat-earther]

magnetometer calibration in 4.5 sucks. calibration worked fine in 4.4

[@squirrelynutz1]

I'm looking into changing to inav. I have a geprc ef10. It has a GEP-F405-BT flightcontroller. Is it possible. I'm worried about tuning. Will the 4.5 pids transfer over? Even if I have to add them manually. It's a 10 inch quad. It's my analog LR build. It has the 5w foxeer infinity vtx. it also has a gps and mag/barometer. I got the mag working on bf 4.5 but inav seems better for my goals with this quad.

[@MrChilli_FPV]

betaflight 4.5 works perfect for me. lands within 3 metre's, no jumping around like yours did, even in windy conditions..did you have enough sats?..did you enable HDOP? there's something definately wrong in your setup...

[@uavtech]

4.5 qas fine. 4.4 was the first flight. Default RTH settings.

[@divingfalconfpv4602]

Did it just say return for lunch?

[@QSpeedRacer]

Weirdest thing. I held position hold for a long time. And then copter went crazy. I realized it seemed to lose compass. But i started flying again got compass direction again. I checked compass was right before taking off. And right while flying again

[@icp-trek]

That was some bad RTH on BF 4.4.3. Mine has worked very well. Sure your settings were ok?

[@uavtech]

default

[@Sugar_K]

its not RTH its gps rescue.. expectations need to reflect that....

[@TechnicallyTom]

One test on each doesn’t really tell us everything. I have had BetaFlight 4.4 rescue mode land correctly and close to the home point. I have also had it drop the drone from a few feet up. Even DJI drones don’t land at the exact point consistently unless they have precision landing that uses the bottom facing cameras to save an image of the take off point to improve the accuracy. Precision landing only works if you take off straight up for a minimum required distance to get the information it needs for precision landing.

[@uavtech]

there was more difference then the landing accuracy. the 4.4 to 4.5 were the same setting outside of GPS defaults changes.

[@TechnicallyTom]

@@uavtech I know that there are other issues. My point was that I have had near perfect landings with 4.4 but we both know that’s not always the case. A single test with 4.5 doesn’t tell us if the landings will be consistent. Another thing that I have observed between multiple versions is that older versions handled the flight back better and didn’t have any bobbles at all although those versions could definitely not be trusted to handle landing. Would be nice if they eventually could get things so the return was as smooth as the older versions but with a consistent landing.

[@Flying_Wild_Boar]

I will love to pay good money for firmware that flights like Betaflight and have Return to home and position hold. I’m not a big fan how iNav flights

[@Sugar_K]

BF would love more money coming into the project its painfully low given we have over 300k users...

[@fpv_am]

Inav vs BF bbl comparison of propwash and setpoint tracking, can't weight.

[@ImperialArmour]

I think what most beginners want in a Bnf is an Inav drone, for whatever reason every manufacturer is shipping Bf.

[@divingfalconfpv4602]

Yea and some my targets for inav don't work. Like motors are miss pinned. Motors 4 & 5 flipped on my rekon5 inav target. The FC manufacturer made a custom target for me years ago but didn't want to ask again so went to BF after

[@franciscfpv]

i dont understand my cheap drone got home more smooth rth with betaflight 4.3,4.4... here something is not quite good configured even landed with ok

[@divingfalconfpv4602]

My mag doesn't work on betaflight. Doesn't read the right direction. But works on inav

[@uavtech]

yeah, i disabled the mag for now in BF.

[@AndreyZzz]

Navigation speed needs to be set faster

[@Mupshot]

Im still struggling to get my 7in DC to tune out a wiggle on pitch when I have any sort of agressive throttle up in INAV7, where on 4.4.3 is was pretty darned good. it does it more on 6s than on 4s. Otherwise on moderate throttle up, it seems to be fine. Position hold and RTH are the main reasons for flashing INAV

[@uavtech]

increased anti-gravity? INAV I think only boosts i-gain with anti gravity so that is a flow that will make it not perform as well. It should boost bith P and I-gains to work well (like BF).

[@kevinsmith9420]

Even my first MJX toy drone's RTH did better. Seems like it can't be that hard to implement.

[@John_Doe_6996]

Well, learn to code and fix it lol. The BF devs have said that the gps code in there is some of the most complex code in the firmware

[@BrainDeadEngineering]

People abuse the click and pray ! To lazy to fly home . Its a valuable asset to get your investment back to base in the event a slobbering Karen or miserable land owner starts tear you a new A holeI🤬 I know 4.5 hates the m8 chips. Took a day to get 6 sats, with a good m10 , 24 sats in under 2 min ! 😊