MatrixPilot 3.1 Released

MatrixPilot 3.1 is released. The project continues to mature, with a fantastic IMU that is still moving ahead with deep research from William Premerlani. Ben Levitt continues to add amazing features such as the built-in firmware for the OSD hardware that can be attached to the UDB3. This means the UDB3 can display it's internal thinking (such as next target waypoint, direction of next target, and maximim G-force being pulled) onto the video screen of the pilot.

Anyway here is a quick summary of the latest changes ...

What's New in MatrixPilot 3.1

Major IMU improvements, including "dizzy-proofing", automatic inflight gyro calibration, and compensation for magnetometer latency.
Live camera tracking of one UDB from another.
User-configurable OSD layouts.
Full support for the DIYDrones MediaTek GPS.
Maintain minimum ground speed. The speed control loop is now based on the smaller of ground speed and air speed.
Improvements to inverted stabilization.
Improvements to the Flight Analyzer tool.
More bug fixes.

There is a lot of talent and development occuring around MatrixPilot at the moment, and I look forward to working with all the newer developers to integrate their new features into MP over the next few months. Thanks everyone.

Best wishes, Pete

@Mike

We hope that the UDB4 release candidate boards will be finished in a few months. The release candidate is our third revision of the UDB4 board. Revision 2 worked well but was susceptible to glitches in the power supply. Bill did yet more R&D, revised the power regulators, and we think we now have a good design in V3. But it needs testing one more time.

In broad terms the UDB4 has a more powerful processor, more RAM and ROM, a separate additional EEPROM, and more hardware to let us calibrate how temperature effects the accelerometers / gyros. The dsPIC33FJ256GP710A has even more I/O paths and most of these have been bought out to the edges of the UDB4. It is more expandable than the UDB3 (although the UDB3 has been expanded way beyond what anyone thought was possible a few years back).

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Comments

Moderator

Gary Mortimer June 30, 2011 at 6:21am

Well done to the team, it gets ever better.
Mike June 29, 2011 at 3:54pm

Thanks for that Pete, will look forward to it.
Developer

Pete Hollands June 29, 2011 at 2:56pm

@Paul, thanks very much for the offer. I will be in touch.
Developer

Pete Hollands June 29, 2011 at 2:55pm

@Mike

We hope that the UDB4 release candidate boards will be finished in a few months. The release candidate is our third revision of the UDB4 board. Revision 2 worked well but was susceptible to glitches in the power supply. Bill did yet more R&D, revised the power regulators, and we think we now have a good design in V3. But it needs testing one more time.

In broad terms the UDB4 has a more powerful processor, more RAM and ROM, a separate additional EEPROM, and more hardware to let us calibrate how temperature effects the accelerometers / gyros. The dsPIC33FJ256GP710A has even more I/O paths and most of these have been bought out to the edges of the UDB4. It is more expandable than the UDB3 (although the UDB3 has been expanded way beyond what anyone thought was possible a few years back).
Paul Mather June 29, 2011 at 1:22pm

Let me know what I can do to help. I assume you guys are going to have different modes than APM....send me an email and I can add modes and parameter info no problem happy@happykillmore.com
Mike June 29, 2011 at 11:36am

Great work Pete and congrats to you and the team, especially Bill and Ben, will try the new code tomorrow.

What is the progress on UDB4 and what are the big changes from UDB3?

Thanks,

Mike
Bryan Cuervo June 29, 2011 at 10:42am

Pete,

Thanks for representing "MatrixPilot" with a systems architecture schematic. With the phenomenal growth of this autopilot, it's hard to keep up. The schematic helps me get a grip on the big picture.

Bryan
Developer

Pete Hollands June 29, 2011 at 10:00am

@Rana: For practical purposes "waypoint editing on the fly" is not a feature today. There is support in Ben's code for changing a waypoint on the fly. And HK GCS has capabilities. But those two parts do not work together yet.

I'm expecting full waypoint editing on the fly, to be achieved quite quickly once we move to the UDB4 and finish off the MAVLink branch of MatrixPilot.
Rana June 29, 2011 at 9:20am

Peter, what u actually mean by "Real Time Planning, Control and Analysis" in this particular project ?

Should it be expected that waypoint editing on the fly is working now ?
Rana June 29, 2011 at 9:11am

Thats really great ! Hats off to the entire team !

This reply was deleted.