Tuning Introduction - rotorflight/rotorflight GitHub Wiki

After initial tuning your contraption should fly. Now it's time to fine-tune it with the Rotorflight Blackbox Explorer. Use the headspeed you'll use most for flying. Also use the Lua scripts for adjusting parameters, if you can.

  • Start with tuning the governor, if you're using it. A perfectly tuned governor will maintain a constant headspeed under all circumstances. That's not always ideal, because a tuned governor might generate too much torque for the tail to counteract. If that's the case, you might need to detune the governor or take other measures.
  • After tuning the governor you should retune cyclic PIDFs. Ideally the feedforward term should do most of the work, while the P-term is only used for quick minor corrections. The I-term will maintain your craft's attitude over time, e.g. when it's windy.
  • The method for tuning the tail depends on the kind of tail. A belt or tube driven tail generates more mechanical gain as the headspeed increases and might need lower PIDs for higher headspeeds. However, a tail with it's own motor (e.g. a direct drive tail) will benefit from TTA (Tail Torque Assist) and might need higher PIDs for higher RPMs.

You can get a good flying heli with just one profile and using 80/90/100% throttle for IU1/2/3. If you tune the heli in IU2, then IU1 and IU3 should be ok as well. This is by far the easiest setup and is recommended if you're new to tuning.

The F-gain is usually more or less constant for different headspeeds, but good P- and I-gains vary with it. If you want full control over every PIDF-term at any headspeed, you might want to consider using different profiles for different headspeeds. This also allows you to use different rescue climb rates for different headspeeds - for example. For this to work you'll have to set up profile switching. This setup is obviously more complex.