Dev Call May 06 2019 2300 UTC

Development Team
1

Issues & Pull Requests







GSOC

  • Student are announced

General

  • New Bootloader

Plane

  • Release Update - Should be a new release in a few days

Copter

Rover

2

Attendee count (max): 22

Pre-agenda:

  • Servo autotrim

    • This is what prearms are for…

    • Compass cal on Copter breaks with the watchdog reset

  • No Craig,randy running call

UTC2305 - freezing integrators

  • Rover has stick-mixing now which mixes in at alow level like Plane

    • Trips up steering integrators etc tec

  • https://github.com/ArduPilot/ardupilot/pull/11261

    • Freezes the integrators

    • Randy doesn’t really like this approach

    • Should move the stick mixing up a level

  • Rover already has stick mixing of a sort with the throttle nudging

    • Goes in as an extra desired speed

    • So no integrator build-up

    • Put it in at the turn rate controller level

      • Navigation controller will still get integrator build-up

    • Plane mixes in at the desired attitude level OR the servo output level (sitckmixing-direct)

      • Tridge would like to take out the servo output level one

      • [9:09 AM] (Channel) MdB: it’s awful :stuck_out_tongue:

      • [9:09 AM] (Channel) MdB: I turn it off aggressively :smiley:

      • [9:10 AM] (Channel) MdB: it’s caused me more headaches (personally) it’s non intuitive…

      • [9:10 AM] To Weekly devcall: Interesting. I love it.

      • [9:11 AM] (Channel) MdB: If you ever hand the plane to someone who doesn’t know how to fly RC competently it’s a great way to watch your aircraft do everything slightly (to very) off :slight_smile:

      • [9:11 AM] (Channel) Naterater.mobile: 10000% useful during landing flare

      • Trims must be taken into account! Critical!

UTC2312 - https://github.com/ArduPilot/ardupilot/pull/11217

  • Tridge has read through it and is happy with the change

  • Will break jsbsim unless jsbsim is updated

  • Timestamp in protocol but timestamp is only right once per universe…

    • 1234567890

  • Patch makes timestamp be correct time

  • Detect special timestamp and use old method?

    • Devs would prefer for upstream to be merged

  • But this is currently pending on upstream merging a patch

  • Tridge will put a note on the ticket to ensure they’re not waiting on us

  • [9:15 AM] (Channel) JP_mob:

  • Simfinite is reworking the jsbsim side of it still

UTC2314 - https://github.com/ArduPilot/ardupilot/pull/11132

  • SITL fix wait clock to correct delay

  • In CMAC avoidance code

  • What does this actually do?

    • Comment on original commit?

  • MdB: Effectively marches time backwards as well as forwards

  • Tridge doesn’t understand the patch but recalls the timestamp issues

    • Found commit comment: Prevent deadlock in SITL

    • This was probably a hack workaround for that deadlock

      • Don’t merge this one, wait for the problem to come up in master then merge

UTC2317 - https://github.com/ArduPilot/ardupilot/pull/11112

  • Update dspoiler autotrim

  • Forgot about autotrim for dspoiler on stuff which went in a little while ago

  • Should not treat bits as booleans

    • “bool flying_wing = (foo & bit)” should be “bool flying_wing = (foo & bit) != 0”

  • Needs testing

    • Tridge remembers getting this incorrect in the first place

    • Fly along, set trim to incorrect value, make sure plane fixes itself

UTC2320 - https://github.com/ArduPilot/ardupilot/pull/10952

  • Pete has done updates and added a reset method

  • Switch or via mode issues again

  • If you disarm in autotune and rearm you should be able to carry on

    • If you disarm in a different mode it will reset

  • Merged!

UTC2323 - https://github.com/ArduPilot/ardupilot/pull/10859

  • Add NMEA output

  • Has requested changes on it

  • Tridge wants minimise features

    • Want to keep the space aside for always-used features

UTC2329 - https://github.com/ArduPilot/ardupilot/pull/10402

  • Tradheli guys

  • Still pending Randy’s help on this one

UTC2330 - 5 GSoC students!

  • Community bonding period

  • Add support for commercially available wind speed and direction sensors

  • Add support for motor sailing

  • Improve handling of failed tacks

  • Support for wing sails controlled using ‘elevator’ control surface

  • Sea state classification

  • Add functionality to learn, store and use a boat speed polar

  • Track wind shifts and implement probabilistic decision making

  • Mapping functionality to allow a defined area to be mapped as quickly as possible considering the limitations of a sailboat

    • MattKear’s turned up to the devcall - welcome!

      • Tradheli autonomous rotation

  • Three other students not on devcall

    • Akshash has already made a nice PR against MAVProxy

    • Rajat-Singhal is working on AirSim simulator support for ArduPilot SITL

      • Already discussed with tridge on various approaches

    • Nguyen Hoang Thien

      • Patrick P is looking after

        • Discuss has some blog pages for projects

          • This is a 3 month project

          • Should have at least three blog posts

          • Working on public forums

  • very, very good proposals didn’t get up

    • Not enough mentors

    • We like students coming back and mentoring future generations

UTC2337 - new bootloader

  • Fixed boot when GPS or whatever on same UART the bootloader is listening on

    • Ublox protocol can generate a pattern of bytes that makes the bootloader think it’s being talked to

    • Board just doesn’t boot

  • Also now supports downloading firmware from the board again!

    • Hex or flash

    • You end up with a 2MB .BIN on a 2MB board

  • Do we need to announce the bootloader+watchdog interactions as part of the release?

    • Plane users should probably update

UTC2345 - two PRs related to IMU issue still valid or not?

  • https://github.com/ArduPilot/ardupilot/pull/11139

  • https://github.com/ArduPilot/ardupilot/pull/11165

  • One from tridge, one from Jon

  • Tridge thinks he can close his own

  • Jon’s one needs a bit of work

  • Killing IMUs in SITL could come in

    • RC switch to kill IMUs…

    • #ifdef SITL around it?

    • Went several years where we had a serious bug which would have been caught by having it in

    • Could have an autotest

    • Protect rc channel option with a devop or board bit

  • Jon resets gyro biases and other learned state when switching lanes

    • Various advantages in that

    • Should mark this as WIP

    • Paul’s got concerns about validation, especially for an emergency release

    • But it’s good code and will help the EKF remain stable, so we’d like to get it in

UTC2351 - Plane release updates

  • New stable in next few days

    • Primarily for the new bootloader

    • Very minor Plane stable

UTC2352 - Copter and Rover issues

  • Betas for 3.6.9rc3 for Copter and 3.5.1 for Rover are out

  • Critical IMU fixes already went out

  • Any beta testers out there? Would like some feedback

  • Cx-of sensor on any board is confirmed to work

  • Copter will have an rc3 with a cuavv5 fix

    • Twin power fix logging fix

    • Affects 5 or 6 different boards

  • https://github.com/ArduPilot/ardupilot/pull/11281

    • Merged!

    • Pthread issue

  • 3.5.1 Rover will be out soon

UTC2356 - Rotor speed governor stuff

  • Randy still to review it

UTC2357 - other

  • Partner’s call tomorrow morning

UTC2358 - new team member vote did not pass

  • Late swing against it

UTC2358 - AUVSI

  • Lots of vehicles running Here and Cube

  • Lots of people proudly declaring their running ArduPilot firmware

    • Still several obvious closet users

  • Not much in the way of DJI gear

UTC2401 - close

3

Should we expect an official announcement for the GSoC with an invitation to the students to present their respective project on GCSoC 2019 Forum ?

I already announced Thien Nguyen @hoangthien94 on the vision channel ; https://gitter.im/ArduPilot/VisionProjects but going on the forum gives them more exposure.

Btw announcing on FaceBook would be nice too.

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