Sorry, have not made any comments in awhile. Impressive results with tour last flight, and great that you added onboard video to be able to truly see how well the system worked.
Could see that it made a minor roll correction smoothly and did not overcontrol.
I second the idea of doing a mid-flight maneuver to test out the system effectiveness.
What I'd suggest is that 1 second before maximum velocity, for the controller to begin a say 45 degree roll, but 1 second later, at expected max velocity, to end the commanded 45 degree roll and force it back to the original roll position. That would allow you to see if it is over-controlling, as well as to get some good idea of how quick;y it does a roll maneuver at such a velocity, It could be that it make a 45 degree roll in 1/2 second and the rest of the 1/2 second is it settling out before it begins to resume the original roll orientation. Or it could be the roll control is not that rapid, so it may only say roll 30 degrees in 1 second, then would stop that roll (probably overshoot a bit) then you'd see how it returned back to the original position and how well it "settles down".
If it actually did do a 45 degree roll in a half second or less
. I'd be concerned it would have more roll control than would be needed. Since after all, you do not really need for the rocket to make a programmed 45 degree roll, you only need for the roll control to be able to keep the bird steady in roll. But a test maneuver like that would help give you some idea.
I am glad to see the larger canards. The ones you used before just seemed too small. Now, with the 2.5X larger canards, you also will be increasing your roll control authority by 2.5X. But if it turned out for example that you had just the right amount of roll control authority before, you portably will have too much by increasing it by 2.5X. So, if the roll control was
"juuuust right" before, you'd need something like 40% of deflection angle for roll control for the larger ones to have the same effective control authority in roll.
Back to doing a maneuver during a test flight, a pitch/yaw maneuver would also be good. I guess in the big picture, if you can only test for one thing next flight, it may be best to focus on the pitch/yaw to see the effects of the larger canards, and save any roll maneuver test for later. But definitely think you need to reduce the roll control to about 40% to avoid possible overcontrol issues. And perhaps a launch tip-off might impart a small roll to the model that will cause the roll control to get a bit of a test anyway, not as severe as a programmed one, but perhaps useful.
I do not recall, is the programming set to handle roll in the sense of simply nulling out roll to stop roll? Or is it trying to hold an actual compass heading? In the big picture you only need to make it to stop rolling, without caring where the roll orientation ends up, so that may be how it is set up. My above suggestion of a programmed 45 degree (or whatever) roll would depend on it being able to maintain a compass heading, which I now realize is not a necessary capability. If it is not trying to hold a compass heading, then a programmed roll could be to deflect the canards a few degrees CW or CCW for 1/2 second or so to cause a roll to begin, then go back to normal control mode and see how quickly it stops the roll and how much it may oscillate a bit before settling down.
- George Gassaway