The ArduPilot development team is proud to announce the release of version 3.4.0 of APM:Plane. This is a major release with a lot of changes so please read the notes carefully!
First release with EKF by default
This is the also the first release that enables the EKF (Extended Kalman Filter) for attitude and position estimation by default. This has been in development for a long time, and significantly improves flight performance. You can still disable the EKF if you want to using the AHRS_EKF_USE parameter, but it is strongly recommended that you use the EKF. Note that if an issue is discovered with the EKF in flight it will automatically be disabled and the older DCM system will be used instead. That should be very rare.
In order to use the EKF we need to be a bit more careful about the setup of the aircraft. That is why in the last release we enabled arming and pre-arm checks by default. Please don't disable the arming checks, they are there for very good reasons.
Last release with APM1/APM2 support
This will be the last major release that supports the old APM1/APM2 AVR based boards. We have finally run out of flash space and memory. In the last few releases we spent quite a bit of time trying to squeeze more and more into the small flash space of the APM1/APM2, but it had to end someday if ArduPilot is to continue to develop. I am open to the idea of someone else volunteering to keep doing development of APM1/APM2 so if you have the skills and inclination do please get in touch. Otherwise I will only do small point release changes for major bugs.
Even to get this release onto the APM1/APM2 we had to make sacrifices in terms of functionality. The APM1/APM2 release is missing quite a few features that are on the Pixhawk and other boards. For example:
- no rangefinder support for landing
- no terrain following
- no EKF support
- no camera control
- no CLI support
- no advanced failsafe support
- no HIL support (sorry!)
- support for far fewer GPS types
that is just the most obvious major features that are missing on APM1/APM2. There are also numerous other smaller things where we need to take shortcuts on the APM1/APM2. Some of these features were
available on older APM1/APM2 releases but needed to be removed to allow us to squeeze the new release onto the board. So if you are happy with a previous release on your APM2 and want a feature that is in that older release and not in this one then perhaps you shouldn't upgrade.
PID Tuning
While most people are happy with autotune to tune the PIDs for their planes, it is nice also to be able to do fine tuning by hand. This release includes new dataflash and mavlink messages to help with that
tuning. You can now see the individual contributions of the P, I and D components of each PID in the logs, allowing you to get a much better picture of the performance.
A simple application of this new tuning is you can easily see if your trim is off. If the Pitch I term is constantly contributing a signifcant positive factor then you know that ArduPilot is having to
constantly apply up elevator, which means your plane is nose heavy. The same goes for roll, and can also be used to help tune your ground steering.
Vibration Logging
This release includes a lot more options for diagnosing vibration issues. You will notice new VIBRATION messages in MAVLink and VIBE messages in the dataflash logs. Those give you a good idea of your
(unfiltered) vibration levels. For really detailed analysis you can setup your LOG_BITMASK to include raw logging, which gives you every accel and gyro sample on your Pixhawk. You can then do a FFT on the
result and plot the distribution of vibration level with frequency. That is great for finding the cause of vibration issues. Note that you need a very fast microSD card for that to work!
Rudder Disarm
This is the first release that allows you to disarm using the rudder if you want to. It isn't enabled by default (due to the slight risk of accidentially disarming while doing aerobatics). You can enable it
with the ARMING_RUDDER parameter by setting it to 2. It will only allow you to disarm if the autopilot thinks you are not flying at the time (thanks to the "is_flying" heuristics from Tom Pittenger).
More Sensors
This release includes support for a bunch more sensors. It now supports 3 different interfaces for the LightWare range of Lidars (serial, I2C and analog), and also supports the very nice Septentrio RTK
dual-frequency GPS (the first dual-frequency GPS we have support for). It also supports the new "blue label" Lidar from Pulsed Light (both on I2C and PWM).
For the uBlox GPS, we now have a lot more configurability of the driver, with the ability to set the GNSS mode for different constellations. Also in the uBlox driver we support logging of the raw carrier phase and pseudo range data, which allows for post-flight RTK analysis with raw-capable receivers for really accurate photo missions.
Better Linux support
This release includes a lot of improvements to the Linux based autopilot boards, including the NavIO+, the PXF and ERLE boards and the BBBMini and the new RasPilot board. If you like the idea of flying
with Linux then please try it out!
On-board compass calibrator
We also have a new on-board compass calibrator, which also adds calibration for soft iron effects, allowing for much more accurate compass calibration. Support for starting the compass calibration in the
various ground stations is still under development, but it looks like this will be a big improvement to compass calibration.
Lots of other changes!
The above list is just a taste of the changes that have gone into this release. Thousands of small changes have gone into this release with dozens of people contributing. Many thanks to everyone who helped!
Other key changes include:
- fixed return point on geofence breach
- enable messages for MAVLink gimbal support
- use 64 bit timestamps in dataflash logs
- added realtime PID tuning messages and PID logging
- fixed a failure case for the px4 failsafe mixer
- added DSM binding support on Pixhawk
- added ALTITUDE_WAIT mission command
- added vibration level logging
- ignore low voltage failsafe while disarmed
- added delta velocity and delta angle logging
- fix LOITER_TO_ALT to verify headings towards waypoints within the loiter radius
- allow rudder disarm based on ARMING_RUDDER parameter
- fix default behaviour of flaps
- prevent mode switch changes changing WP tracking
- make TRAINING mode obey stall prevention roll limits
- disable TRIM_RC_AT_START by default
- fixed parameter documentation spelling errors
- send MISSION_ITEM_REACHED messages on waypoint completion
- fixed airspeed handling in SITL simulators
- enable EKF by default on plane
- Improve gyro bias learning rate for plane and rover
- Allow switching primary GPS instance with 1 sat difference
- added NSH over MAVLink support
- added support for mpu9250 on pixhawk and pixhawk2
- Add support for logging ublox RXM-RAWX messages
- lots of updates to improve support for Linux based boards
- added ORGN message in dataflash
- added support for new "blue label" Lidar
- switched to real hdop in uBlox driver
- improved auto-config of uBlox
- raise accel discrepancy arming threshold to 0.75
- improved support for tcp and udp connections on Linux
- switched to delta-velocity and delta-angles in DCM
- improved detection of which accel to use in EKF
- improved auto-detections of flow control on pixhawk UARTs
- Failsafe actions are not executed if already on final approach or land.
- Option to trigger GCS failsafe only in AUTO mode.
- added climb/descend parameter to CONTINUE_AND_CHANGE_ALT
- added HDOP to uavcan GPS driver
- improved sending of autopilot version
- prevent motor startup with bad throttle trim on reboot
- log zero rangefinder distance when unhealthy
- added PRU firmware files for BeagleBoneBlack port
- fix for recent STORM32 gimbal support
- changed sending of STATUSTEXT severity to use correct values
- added new RSSI library with PWM input support
- fixed MAVLink heading report for UAVCAN GPS
- support LightWare I2C rangefinder on Linux
- improved staging of parameters and formats on startup to dataflash
- added new on-board compass calibrator
- improved RCOutput code for NavIO port
- added support for Septentrio GPS receiver
- support DO_MOUNT_CONTROl via command-long interface
- added CAM_RELAY_ON parameter
- moved SKIP_GYRO_CAL functionality to INS_GYR_CAL
- added detection of bad lidar settings for landing
Note that the documentation hasn't yet caught up with all the changes in this release. We are still working on that, but meanwhile if you see a feature that interests you and it isn't documented yet then please ask.
Comments
@Kevin This is not an autopilot issue, it's Mission Planner. It reads texts that it gets from the autopilot. Take a look in the messages tab, it's reading that stuff to you. You're probably hearing a GPS location. Please post an issue in Mission Planner about it here https://github.com/diydrones/MissionPlanner/issues
I will try to get a screen shot of it but it says several different numbers on boot up... I have caught it where it says V3.4 but it also says some number that is like in the millions...maybe billions lol
It also says things like Throttle Enable when switched to auto and Executing Nav Command ID #15 when in a auto flight plan.
@Kevin, when you say yelling several numbers what do you mean exactly?
Thanks, Grant.
So, apparently the dataflash logs logs from AP 2.4:
- cannot be uploaded to droneshare
- cannot be converted (bin to log) by mission planner (lasted version)
- cannot be analysed by mission planner (auto analysis)
Mission planner can open them and display data, but that's it.
Has anyone had more luck than me, at least for getting a GPS track back out of it?
Made a thread: http://ardupilot.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=113&t=13979
I do like where it says flare in auto landings though
Dear @Andrew, please take a look at the 3 flights what I uploaded from yesterday:
1st flight with AP3.4 which looked nice (some warnings on the EKF and the MP sent some other debugging messages) but after landing it turned out that no pictures were taken in AUTO mode, even though on the ground "Trigger Camera Now" worked:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzzUBqpwxqRCWG5rOU1uLVUzaUk/view?u...
2nd flight with AP3.3 which did the RTL automatically (according to the pilot MANUAL->RTL, which is quite scarry):
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzzUBqpwxqRCakIwbWpFQlZkcEk/view?u...
I suspect during manual flight it went out of 1km radius from the first waypoint?!?!
Hope my comments make sense, thanks a lot for looking at them!
3rd flight with AP3.3 which worked:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0BzzUBqpwxqRCTDdkWlBpR25QRlk/view?u...
I had the same issue when we flew last Saturday Tridge, it was triggering on the ground, but stopped triggering, I think when it went into auto. You probably have the tlog on your computer or I've put the bin log here https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/71079002/logs/6.7z.
I wasn't sure of the cause of the problem because you said you could see it triggering on your GCS, so I thought it was perhaps more problems with my triggering set up, but perhaps its a bug.
@Andrew I am currently still out on the field with slow internet connection, so as soon as I am back I will post it. It also looks like the auto RTL issue was solved by setting the RALLY_LIMIT_KM parameter to 5 km instead of 1 km. This problem never occured to me, if I am correct the default value was 5 km in the past?
@Balint, can you post a tlog somewhere? Perhaps on the forums is best, but link to it here. I'd like to check the settings and also look for the CAMERA_FEEDBACK messages to see if they are being sent.
Camera triggering via the Pixhawk -> MONO -> Sony QX1 (using RC_6) seems not to be working. I just uploaded the new firmware, camera triggering on the ground works, but the plane does not take pictures while in the air. If I revert back to the old 3.3 firmware and using the new mission planner the plane seems like getting to RTL after a few seconds in the air.
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