paparazzi/paparazzi — pull request #256 by dewagter (2012-08-04 07:40:46+00:00)
Title: V4.1 total energy control

pitch from airspeed, throttle from altitude, ... or maybe pitch from altitude and throttle from airspeed. Oh, no then we stall when the propulsion has a problem... then we do pitch from airspeed. Oh no, then the plane will dive into the ground during takeoff. Then we will takeoff with throttle from airspeed, then switch to pitch from airspeed for flight and landing. But then we must make sure we do not climb to hard to keep the speed within limits. Let's limit the MAX_CLIMB to 1m/s. Hmmm... Why can't it just do what it is supposed to do: climb and descend fast, fly at the correct airspeed all the time, not stall on motor problems and not crash on takeoff without any mode change?

Well now you can:

Total Energy Control for paparazzi-fixedwing with imu.

-throttle controls the lack of energy, and pitch the balance (airspeed/height)
-on total-energy saturation (e.g. engine failure or max climb) the energy balance lets loose of the altitude
-on takeoff the plane will not dive if the acceleration requirement is met
-you can climb with 100% and descend with 0% throttle
-full-speed climb loop (e.g. 100Hz in imu_aspirin) instead of old 4Hz