auto heading

To keep things simple, start by just using the compass with a low-pass filter to reduce the noise. If you need better results, the Kalman filter would be a good next choice.

Basically, the compass gives a stable long-term estimate of your heading but its either noisy or unresponsive to quick motion. The gyro provides good short-term info, but they tend to drift over time.

Its hard to say without more info. That said, water provides plenty of damping, so I doubt you'd need a derivative control term. You could probably get away with manually tuning a PI control that drives a low-frequency (~0.5Hz) PWM on your motors (assuming you don't have a proper PWM controller for them). A well-chosen integral control might even suffice (no P term).

To explore the control more throughly, you could generate "Bode plots" by applying constant-period control signals to the motors. For example, measure the time delay (phase) and angular change (amplitude) to a series of [right 1s], [left 1s] commands. Then repeat for 2s, 4s, ... pulses. Also repeat at a few fixed forward velocities (stopped, nominal cruise, fastest). Plotting this information for a few different settings reveals significant information about the system dynamics.

Basic things to look for:

- a good PWM frequency will be slightly less than what causes a "significant turn"

- keep the proportional gain low enough that "the phase does not exceed

I've rambled enough.

- Daniel

Ok.

Does "the gyro tends to drift" mean that after some time I get an angular velocity also if I go straight? If so, how one should use gyros? Or better... where can I find some literature on this concept?

Well, I guess you're right. I'll try first this way.

It's a good idea!

I think I have to select the "good" PWM frequency once I set output at 50%. So I will get a "significant turn" at 50%, over this I can rotate faster and below I can make fine movements. Am I right?

Of course, otherwise it's prone to oscillate....

I thank you very much!!!!

Marco / iw2nzm

Since the compass measures the earth's magnetic field, it will always point in "the right general direction" (assuming there is no interference from iron, other magnets, or electrical circuits).

The gyro, on the other hand, does not have an external reference. Any miscalibration will cause its internal reference to rotate slowly. Over time, it will "drift" and the internal angular reference will show increasing deviation from an external reference. Observe this by leaving the gyro in a fixed position and watching its output. Really good units (e.g. submarine equipment) don't drift much at all (they can measure the angular precession of the earth turning), but I've never had the benefit of using one. The cheap stuff I've used drifted at rates around 1 degree per minute, depending on the temperature.

To mix the gyro and compass measurements, start with a fixed-gain filter like

H[t] = (1-a-b)*H[t-T] + a*CH[t] + b*(GH[t]-GH[t-T]) where t - current time T - sampling interval (assuming both sensors are measured at the same time) H - heading (H[t-T] is the previously calculated heading) CH - compass heading GH - gyro heading (GH[t-T] is the previous measurement) a,b - weighting coefficients where 0

Now, I'm quite sure too because you put me on the right way :-)

Marco / iw2nzm