APM:Plane 3.5.1 released

The ArduPilot development team is proud to announce the release of version 3.5.1 of APM:Plane. This is a minor release with primarily small changes.

The changes in this release are:

update uavcan to new protocol
always exit loiter in AUTO towards next waypoint
support more multicopter types in quadplane
added support for reverse thrust landings
added LAND_THR_SLEW parameter
added LAND_THEN_NEUTRL parameter
fixed reporting of armed state with safety switch
added optional arming check for minimum voltage
support motor test for quadplanes
added QLAND flight mode (quadplane land mode)
added TECS_LAND_SRC (land sink rate change)
use throttle slew in quadplane transition
added PID tuning for quadplane
improved text message queueing to ground stations
added LAND_THR_SLEW parameter
re-organisation of HAL_Linux bus API
improved NMEA parsing in GPS driver
changed TECS_LAND_SPDWGT default to -1
improved autoconfig of uBlox GPS driver
support a wider range of Lightware serial Lidars
improved non-GPS performance of EKF2
allow for indoor flight of quadplanes
improved compass fusion in EKF2
improved support for Pixracer board
improved NavIO2 support
added BATT_WATT_MAX parameter

The reverse thrust landing is particularly exciting as that adds a whole new range of possibilities for landing in restricted areas. Many thanks to Tom for the great work on getting this done.

The uavcan change to the new protocol has been a long time coming, and I’d like to thank Holger for both his great work on this and his patience given how long it has taken to be in a release. This adds support for automatic canbus node assignment which makes setup much easier, and also supports the latest versions of the Zubax canbus GPS.

My apologies if your favourite feature didn’t make it into this release! There are a lot more changes pending but we needed to call a halt for the release eventually. This release has had a lot of flight testing and I’m confident it will be a great release.

Happy flying!