ArduPilotMega Beta code now live!

After more than a 1,000 commits and many thousand lines of code, the public beta of the ArduPilotMega code is now out. You can get it here. Note that the new libraries requires a slightly different installation process, so read the manual so you can put the libraries in the right folder. The code won't compile if you don't. Also, you'll need to be using Arduino 19 or higher.

New features include:

An awesome command-line interpreter (CLI) running on APM, which allows you to make most common configurations and setup without having to recompile the code.
The CLI also allows you to interactively test all your hardware components--no messing with Arduino code or configuration files if you don't want to!
Powerful new scripting commands and flight options.
New FastSerial code, replacing the standard Arduino serial code, which makes serial communications lightning fast.
The entire code has been re-architected to use libraries, which are shared across the ArduPilot projects. That way we can improve everything from GPS parsers to basic DCM routines and all the projects will immediately inherit the improvements. That not only means better code for everyone, but much easier maintenance for the team.

Speaking of the team, special thanks to the core APM dev team that put in so much work and creativity to get us here. These guys have worked tirelessly on this, with daily coding sessions and weekly dev conference calls, all year. This is a huge project, perhaps the most complex Arduino code ever written, and these are the stars who led it:

Jason Short
Michael Smith
Doug Weibel

With help from some ArduCopter team members:

Jose Julio
Jani Hirvinen

Config utility wizadry from:

Michael Oborne
Ted Carancho (ArduCopter Configurator)

And all this made possible by Hardware Ninja Jordi Munoz!

As always, please report all bugs and problems in the Issue Tracker. The developers can't respond to bug reports in blog comments and discussion forums.

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Comments

Developer

Doug Weibel October 3, 2010 at 8:57pm

Joe, the sketchbook will remain in the repository. We have now branched the repository so be sure you are using the sketchbook for the beta 1.0 branch. There is also the sketchbook for the trunk, but if you use that you are getting whatever we are working on at the moment which may or may not be flyable and which may or may not have the features it did before.
Joseph Schauber October 3, 2010 at 6:34pm

Chris,

Will the "Sketchbook" in the SVN remain ? What a great way to keep up to date!

Team,
Outstanding and Thanks.

Joe
3D Robotics

Chris Anderson October 3, 2010 at 3:25pm

Adam, that means deleting the "//" before it. All this is spelled out in excruciating detail (with pictures!) in the manual.
AKRCGUY October 3, 2010 at 3:11pm

Can someone explain "un-commenting the line" in the GPS config?
3D Robotics

Chris Anderson October 3, 2010 at 2:19pm

The ABC LEDs now all blink together (I'll be updating the manual to reflect this). But if you have GPS lock they should be solid.
Terence Gronowski October 3, 2010 at 2:17pm

Just downloaded code, compiles well (no copying of the libraries folder necessary). Seems to run well in MANUAL, FLY_BY_WIRE_A and AUTO mode.

When I run it (electicity by usb) the LEDs A, B and C blink regularly alltogether. Is this ok and a sign of having recieved a GPS lock?

Thanks for the good work!
3D Robotics

Chris Anderson October 3, 2010 at 12:02pm

Tom, are you confusing APM and ArduCopter? APM has full GPS navigation working already.
Tom October 3, 2010 at 11:37am

Hello i just want to thank you all for your hard work and hope to see GPS and other things added in time but thank you all Tom
BriFly October 3, 2010 at 7:38am

Just curious when the new Mega GCS is going to be released?
Rana October 3, 2010 at 5:58am

Updating Firmware of AruPilot Mega from Repositories @Google Code

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