P on Roll

Cruise around, with good P, the control should feel precise and the quad should follow your sticks very closely.
Try to do some sharp turns (where you use both the throttle and roll), if P is too low the quad will dip to one side (like a
wobble), or in the form of slow oscillation. When P is too high, you will get very fast oscillations. When P is right, you
should get minimum oscillations when doing sharp turns.

P on Pitch
Do a split-S (where you move both the throttle and pitch sticks), and as you increase throttle to recover, pay attention
to the pitch movement. If the quad pitches up more than it should, then P is probably too low. but if you get some fast
oscillations then you need to decrease P.
Fine tune it until you get to a point where the quad feels very responsive and nimble, making sure there is no
excessive amount of vibration. Also listen to your motors, twitching motors are a sign of excess P gain which might not
be visible in the camera.

TPA
TPA is a setting to reduce the effectiveness of P gain as throttle increases.
If your quad flies fine in low to mid throttle, but only gets oscillations with high throttle, then increasing TPA will help.
Do a punch out and see if there is any fast oscillations, if so, increase TPA. Good TPA will give you a relatively
smooth punch out. I personally wouldn’t use TPA higher than 0.4, otherwise your quad might feel “loose” at high
throttle.

D on Roll and Pitch

When you do aggressive maneuvers like flips and rolls, and your quad overshoots at the end of the move then bounce
back, increase D for the affected axis.
Increasing D gain can also help reduce prop wash (oscillation when you descent).
Be careful because excessive D gain can introduce oscillations to your quad, and also make motors run hot, so use
just enough to minimize propwash. Another sign of too much D term is fast oscillations at the end of a roll or flip.
Note that to eliminate bounces at the end of a flip or roll, you can also use Setpoint Transition which we will talk about
next.

I on Roll
Bank your quad to the left and right to see if it’s holding the angle well. Ideally it should just stay at the same attitude
as you release the roll stick. If the quad can’t hold the angle then it’s an indication that I gain is probably too low.
Your quad can drift with the wind, so you might want to increase I a bit more on a windy day depending how bad it is.
I recommend setting I term just high enough to stay level, excessively high I gain can result in a stiff, robotic feeling,
and even oscillations.

I on Pitch
When you are flying forward, the pitch angle should stay the same. If it’s not keeping the same angle and changes
over time, Increase I on pitch.
If the noise wanders when you are not increasing throttle, then increase I gain.

Anti Gravity Gain

Fly in a straight line and do some rapid punchouts to see if pitch stays at the same angle, if the quad dips down then
increase Anti Gravity. I found 3 to 5 to be a good range for most of my setup’s.

P on Yaw
Yaw PID needs to be tuned separately. Default values usually work pretty well on all setups.
Spin quickly on the yaw axis and see how it stops, if you get fast oscillations then decrease P, but if the quad dips one
side, then increase P.
Excessive Yaw P won’t cause as much vibration as on roll and pitch because yaw movement is much weaker on a
quadcopter (aka. lacking yaw authority). Look for any twitching and oscillations on the yaw axis. Another sign of Yaw
P being too high, is the quadcopter gaining altitude when doing rapid yaw movements.
When Yaw P is right the spin should be clean and snappy.

I on Yaw
“I” is there to prevent drift, and “sliding out” in turns, but excessive yaw “I” can introduce instability and actually
reduces responsiveness. Yaw “I” should not be higher than just enough to prevent drift.
In most cases just leave Yaw I at default if there is no issue.

Yaw Performance VS. PID

The hardest part to understand and recognize in PID tuning, is probably the yaw axis. However, because you can
normally just leave the default Betaflight settings, tuning yaw can wait until you are confident that you can recognize
how the changes you make are affecting the characteristics.
PID tuning can help with yaw performance of your quad to certain extent, but you have to understand there are many
other factors that can introduce yaw destabilization too.
One of the most common problem with yaw is, when you do a fast yaw spin, the quad shoots upwards and fails to
maintain its altitude.
A quadcopter’s yaw performance depends heavily on the hardware, i.e. your motors, propellers and ESC, which
determines your maximum yaw rate – how fast you can spin around yaw axis, until you get destabilization.
Apart from PID, there are other things you can do to improve yaw performance:
• Using Heavier Propellers: Higher pitch propellers can generate more counter-torque at the cost of efficiency
• Increase Motor RPM by using higher KV motors or increasing battery voltage (e.g. higher cell count LiPo)
• Using ESC’s with stronger braking – Yaw destabilization can occur when an accelerating motor increases its
speed faster than a decelerating motor can slow down
• Reducing motor distance can help increase yaw authority too: A 6″ frame running 5″ props will have worse
yaw performance than a 5″ frame with the same props because of moment of inertia
If you cannot afford to mess around with hardware, the last resort would be to lower your yaw rate, or increase yaw
expo, either way will slow down the beginning and the end of a yaw spin to improve stability.

D-Term Setpoint Weight and Setpoint Transition

Setpoint Weight is extremely important, it can totally mask a bad tune, and changes the handling of the quad just as
much as PID’s. Therefore I recommend spending a bit more time tuning it.
I have a whole article to explain what Setpoint Weight and Transition is and how they affect flight
characteristics of a quad, please check it out. Here is the short version :)
If Setpoint Weight is high, the quad will feel more snappy, robotic, precise and locked-in, but it will also feel rougher.
When it’s low, the quad feels smoother but also looser and more sluggish. Racers prefer to have it higher, while
freestyle pilots prefer a lower value. I personally use 0.9-1.0, which I believe is a good balance and should
work for most people.
For Setpoint Transition, a high value will feel slower, mushier, but smoother between acro moves. A lower value will
make the quad accelerate into the next move more aggressively.
The default Setpoint transition of 1 should give you maximum smoothing effect and will help reduce bounces at the
end of a flip or roll. I recommend a lower value such as 0.1 to 0.3 which is a good balance between response and
smoothness IMO.

ESC Idle Throttle Value

Default is 4% for DShot which is a good starting point for most builds. I usually lower it as much as I can which gives
me longer “hang time”, the time you can spend inverted in the air :) But when you set this too low you might get a dip
at the end of a roll or flip because it takes longer to get RPM up to speed again.

Not Every Vibration Problem is related to PID

Your hardware configuration plays a big part in the performance of your quadcopter, there are a few things you should
check and get right first.

Vibration
Not all oscillations are caused by high P or D gains. You need to eliminate vibration sources as much as possible on
your quadcopter before tuning PID. The balance of motors and propellers, soft-mounting flight controllers and motors,
even frame rigidity, can factor in vibrations. With a vibration-free copter, you can set much higher P and D gains for
smoother yet more locked-in flight characteristics.

Center of Gravity
Ideally, the center of gravity (CG) to be right in the middle of your quadcopter, where the 4 motors intersect on a
horizontal plane, and be as close as possible to the line of propellers on the vertical plane.
When your CG is off-centered, some motors will have to work harder than others, which will affect stability, cause
motors to overheat, and limits your maximum speed.
For example – if the LiPo battery is mounted too far back in a quad, it shifts the CG further towards the rear. Now the
2 rear motors might be pushing at 100%, while the 2 front motors are only at 80%. At this point, if you want to push the
throttle harder, you can’t! You quad might wobble back and forth, but it will fail to deliver any extra power because the
rear motors have already maxed out.

Mass Distribution and Moment of Inertia

Quadcopters with more centralized mass tend to feel more precise, snappy and responsive. When there is more mass
on the outside of a quad, it takes more force to rotate it, and longer to accelerate to the desired velocity. Likewise, due
to the higher angular mass and inertia, it’s also harder to stop it from rotating.
That’s why X frames (mini quad frame shape) have taken over the racing drone industry from “H designs” when
people realized the benefits. Apart from the frame design, lighter motors and ESC’s also help to reduce rotational
inertia.