Copter-3.4-rc2 available for beta testing

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Randy Mackay

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Aug 8, 2016, 6:25:57 AM8/8/16
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Copter-3.4-rc2 is now available for beta testing through the Mission Planner’s Beta Firmwares link.

 

A relatively complete list of changes are available in the ReleaseNotes.txt but I’ve copied them below as well:

     https://github.com/ArduPilot/ardupilot/blob/master/ArduCopter/ReleaseNotes.txt

 

Changes from 3.4.0-rc1

1) ADSB based avoidance of manned aircraft

2) Polygon fence (works seamlessly with circular and altitude fences)

3) Throttle related changes:

    a) motors speed feedback to pilot while landed - motors only spin up to minimum throttle as throttle stick is brought to mid (previously spun up to 25%)

    b) MOT_HOVER_LEARN allows MOT_THST_HOVER to be learned in flight

    c) THR_MIN becomes MOT_SPIN_MIN

    d) THR_MID becomes MOT_THST_HOVER

4) Precision landing:

    a) control improved by reducing lag from sensor and correcting math errors

    b) descent rate slows to allow time to correct horizontal position error

5) Guided mode:

    a) velocity controller accelerates/decelerates smoothly to target

    b) Guided_NoGPS flight mode added to allow companion computer control in non-GPS environments

    c) stop at fence if using velocity controller, reject points outside fence if using position controller

6) Throw Mode:

    a) THROW_NEXTMODE parameter allows copter to switch to Auto, Guided, RTL, Land or Brake after throw is complete 

    b) Throw mode fixes so motors reliably start

7) Attitude controller:

    a) use Quaternions instead of Euler angles

    b) ATC_ANG_LIM_TC allows controlling rate at which lean angles are limited to preserve altitude in AltHold, Loiter

8) EKF can use range finder as primary height source if EKF2_RNG_USE_HGT parameter is set to 70

9) Bug fixes

    a) AutoTune fix so that gains don't fall too low

    b) Rally points with altitudes no longer cause vehicle to climb above fence during RTL

    c) various EKF fixes including bug in initialisation of declination co-variances

    d) SingleCopter, CoaxCopter flag gains

10) Small enhancements:

    a) Rally points outside fence are ignored

    b) AP_Button support added to allow ground station to see if user has pushed a button on the flight controller

    c) support for PLAY_TUNE and LED_CONTROL mavlink messages to cause vehicle to play tune or change colour of LED

    d) support for GPS_INPUT mavlink message to allow supplying vehicle position data from other sources

    e) NAV_DELAY mission command to delay start of mission (or individual command) until a specified absolute time

    e) TKOFF_NAV_ALT param allows take-off with no horizontal position hold until vehicle reaches specified altitude (intended mostly for helicopters)

    f) SCHED_LOOP_RATE param allows slowing main loop rate from default of 400 (intended for developers only)

11) Safety (in addition to Fence improvements above):

    a) Motors begin spinning 2 seconds after arming (previously motors spun immediately)

 

I suspect there will be an –rc3 based on testing but with any luck the changes will be relatively minor between now and the final release.

 

-Randy

Jesus Alvarez

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Aug 8, 2016, 10:11:44 AM8/8/16
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Congrats to all devs.
That list is huge!
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