Quadcopter Hover Tuner

A hobby quadcopter cannot simply "hold 6 metres" — something has to decide, hundreds of times a second, how much throttle to give the props. That something is a PID controller, and it has exactly three knobs. Tune them, click the sky to ask for a different altitude, and hit gust to shove the quad off its perch.

A side-view animation of a quadcopter holding altitude. Your browser does not support canvas.
click the sky to change the altitudetap the sky to set the altitude

Response — last 12 seconds

A chart of altitude over time.
altitude asked for gust

Hold quality

—overshoot
—settle time
—hold error
idle

Measured from the last test step, altitude change or gust. Settled means it stayed inside the band around the line for a full second.

The three knobs

Reacts to the gap right now. Too little and it hangs below the line; too much and it charges straight past it.
Notices a gap that never closes and quietly adds throttle. Drag it to zero and watch the quad sag below the line forever.
Watches how fast the gap is closing and eases off early. Damps the bounce — too much and the throttle gets fidgety.

Try a tune

Loaded with a middling tune — it holds the line, but it bounces on the way. Every tune flies the same 3 → 6 m test step, so the three numbers above compare like for like.

Controls