CraigElder
(Craig Elder)
October 29, 2018, 11:01pm
1
ChibiOS
iofirmware,
timeframe for removing PX4NuttX and PX4Firmware
Issues & Pull Requests
Plane
Copter
Rover
AUVSI
1 Like
CraigElder
(Craig Elder)
November 1, 2018, 11:18pm
2
Attendee count (max): 17
UTC2300 - ChibiOS migration
https://github.com/ArduPilot/ardupilot/pull/9651
ChibiOS on IO firmware on PixHawk and related boards
Once in, we don’t need PX4 NuttX or PX4 Firmware
Needs to be flown and tested
When do we switch and remove those other repos
Next Plane will be ChibiOS only
Next Copter will be ChibiOS only
Next Rover will be ChibiOS only
Next Sub?!
MdB: plane needs to keep PX4 support until actual feature completion is present
Why remove it rather than just not giving it new features?
Maintenance cost
Want to evolve IO protocol
Need feature parity!
In particular, mixing support in fixed wing support, getting manual takeover
Also a servos-to-extreme problem present last time tested
People are also sticking with Makefile because it’s the easiest path
Not moving to waf because the easiest path is Make
Same thing with ChibiOS!
End users use stable and beta releases
Most people don’t fly out of master
Devs should be pushing the edge
Commercial users want to see flight time on ChibiOS
[10:07 AM] (Channel) DB: here’s the list of things that don’t work yet…
https://github.com/ArduPilot/ardupilot/issues/8109
Mixer failsafe is the big one
Current mixer failsafe isn’t great
We were going to do another one
But if it is a sticking point then we could go back and reimplement the old one
How do we get flight time on ChibiOS?
[10:08 AM] (Channel) LV: commercial users tend to use Release builds, and couldn’t care less
[10:09 AM] (Channel) LV: if it is chibios or nuttx they don’t care as long as it does what they want.
[10:10 AM] (Channel) DB: "Not respecting BRD_SAFETYENABLE and BRD_SAFETYMASK intermittently "
IO outputs work regardless of safety switch (BRD_SAFETY_MASK)
Believed working by tridge
Believed non-working by others
Tridge will test
How do we get people to test ChibiOS when when they test they simply drop back to NuttX and don’t report their problems?
When do we remove?
Not today!
Soon!
If there are remaining issues people should start pushing hard on them
We switched to waf years ago but we have core team members who have issues with waf and stop us from moving solely to waf
If you have any issues, put them on https://github.com/ArduPilot/ardupilot/issues/8109
[10:17 AM] (Channel) LV: Now would be great. Been flying Copter and TradHeli Chibios ever since and no major issues
Tridge would like to do this within a month
MdB isn’t keen on trying to maintain a fork if we remove support for ChibiOS in master
MdB wants to get through a major release with ChibiOS as the main
MdB: Not feature complete!
Tridge: Neither is NuttX! Lots of features on ChibiOS not on NuttX
Mixer is only missing feature as far as tridge can see
Peter: Pwm-based rangefinder (see Peter’s PR)
Tridge is happy to put time in to push this forward
Wants an aggressive timeframe to move onto ChibiOS
Wants a gate - when can we remove the old one
The only thing out there is the fixed-wing mixer on Plane
A point release for 3.9 would meet that requirement?
Stop pins for analog stop pins
Can be done in hardware
It’s a nasty piece of code
Layering violations galore
Randy thinks we can do without it
Fmuv1?
Not done yet
Randy thinks we should retire this hardware
Tridge could do the port
But not a priority
The IO-board side is hard because of a uart/i2c weirdness / shared-telemetry-radio thing
There are low-cost boards out there based on fmuv1
This could be done if anybody ever complains
Flight time hours on ChibiOS?
We have a lot!
Mostly due to the Mission Planner interface!
Tridge will be putting effort into the mixer stuff
If MdB can put the testing into it
Not via old protocol
New protocol for mixer support
[10:29 AM] (Channel) DB: oreo LEDs for Solo reported as not working on chibios
[10:29 AM] To Weekly devcall: @DavidBuzz - wasn’t Matt looking at that?
[10:29 AM] (Channel) DB: no idea. the issue is here: https://github.com/ArduPilot/ardupilot/issues/9076
[10:30 AM] (Channel) DB: matt “assigned tridge” to the issue, so I think it’s on tridge at the moment.
Turning off mixer when rebooting?!
Randy: biggest issue is the dev environment
Bit like the Make thing
Eclipse environment and waf
Tridge has asked several times on that
Happy to put time into working on his own laptop if someone can help with Eclipse install
Or help on someone else’s machine
Much, much faster when it is working
Randy is happy to work on this any time
Tridge’s IO firmware needs testing on a Copter
Randy raised the issue with developers that could not set up a build environment after the move to waf
[10:35 AM] (Channel) JW: @all I’m fine with chibios, In my situation another stable Sub release is low priority
JW: 3.6 will be chibios
https://github.com/ArduPilot/ardupilot/pull/9651
[10:34 AM] (Channel) DB: “update documentation in wiki to remove all PX4 and/orNuttx references, especially dev build howtos.”
[10:37 AM] (Channel) MdB: Are we deleting VRBrain? Because without it I don’t see the difference
[10:37 AM] (Channel) MdB: just under 50% of PX4 features are also VRBRain features…
Make wrapper
Just call waf to do stuff
Developers are averse to changes in their development env
VRBrain doesn’t build in master
Chased Roberto and co for a long time to get them to do the ChibiOS
6 or 8 emails
They’ve said they intend to do it
Only way this is going to move forward is to delete it
[10:39 AM] To Weekly devcall: I know I broke stuff in there
[10:40 AM] To Weekly devcall: I promised Francisco I’d fix it if anyone noticed.
[10:33 AM] (Channel) PR.mobile: Please do not delete PX4!!!
Not enough testing
Wants a 3.7 release before removing NuttX
Randy points out 3.7 is a long, long way off
There was 6 months of 3.6 beta testing
Tonnes and tonnes of flight testing before 3.7 goes out
“Guinea pig has already left the barn” – tridge
Majority of logs tridge sees are ChibiOS
Thanks MO for the MP interface!
All new flight boards - our most active testers - use ChibiOS
Big proportion of 3.6 testers were ChibiOS
[10:42 AM] (Channel) LV: Sorry Copter -> Copter 3.5.0 17-July-2017
“We’re on ChibiOS now” - tridge
Take-aways
Mixing support
Peter’s rangefinder
Randy and tridge on eclipse
Michael on mixer testing
Each dev call we should have an update on what’s remaining
Peter will flight-test
But can really only do straight-up PWM on his vehicle
More flight-testing on things like one-short will be required
Logic-analyzer says the outputs are fine…
Want to get this done!
Should this be a 4.0?
Tends to lead to scope creep
“If we’re doing a major release we should change X as well”
[10:47 AM] (Channel) DB: leave the decision on the number change till the very last minute. then maybe make it 4.0 without telling anyone.
[10:45 AM] (Channel) eosbandi: My two cents:If Nuttx remains in 3.7, users (mostly professional ones) who like to play safe will continue to use just because it is older than chibios. The only way to make them change is to delete/disable it in the next release.
[10:47 AM] (Channel) MdB: @tridge : can you start pinging me everytime you have to do PX4 maintenace work? I just haven’t seen the effort happening (outside of safety switch) so I’d like to just be tracking that better. (I genuinely just haven’t seen the maintance burden at this point and would like to see it better)
UTC2347 - https://github.com/ArduPilot/ardupilot/issues/9649
Too many constellations!
User finally tripped over it!
Should we genetically catch and handle this?
Low-latency GPS PR detects if we’re getting the 5Hz
DavidBuzz: every single gps configuration thats needed is automatically done , why not drop the third constellation at configure time…?
Dropping constellations could lead to a position shift?
User actually had fiddled their config in this case
UTC2353 - https://github.com/ArduPilot/ardupilot/pull/9638
UTC2358 - https://github.com/ArduPilot/ardupilot/pull/9634
What should the style be?
Use the square of the distance where possible
Case-by-case
There are cases which are the opposite - should be pre-calculating and using that precalculated value
Could also cache/expire cache
UTC2359 - [10:59 AM] https://github.com/ArduPilot/ardupilot/pull/9611
People are happy for this to go in
UTC0005 - https://github.com/ArduPilot/ardupilot/pull/9610
Tridge can see how it lines up
Merged!
UTC0007 - one for Leonard… no Leonard
UTC0008 - https://github.com/ArduPilot/ardupilot/pull/9497
MdB hasn’t done anything with this
Whitespace changes
Tridge-requested changes have been done
Tridge has approved it
merged!
UTC0011 - https://github.com/ArduPilot/ardupilot/pull/9391
Tridge will try to get to look at as soon as he can
UTC0014 - Leonard
https://github.com/ArduPilot/ardupilot/pull/9569
Slew rate has to be done elsewhere
Problem is triggered when digging motor out of low-rpm state
To do on PWM output is not as straight forward as doing on thrust output
On back-burner ATM, needs to be reworked
Will remove devcalltopic until it is worked on
UTC0016 - https://github.com/ArduPilot/ardupilot/pull/9288
Happy with the concept
Can be merged once tests have passed
UTC0022 - https://github.com/ArduPilot/ardupilot/pull/9167
More for tridge to work on
UTC0023 - https://github.com/ArduPilot/ardupilot/pull/9121
Can be merged once a one-parameter-minimum goes in
UTC0031 - https://github.com/ArduPilot/ardupilot/pull/9062
Make it a bitmask or enumeration
UTC0033 - https://github.com/ArduPilot/ardupilot/pull/8816
MdB hasn’t found time to test it
UTC0033 - more quadplane issues marked for tridge’s attention
UTC0034 - Plane update
No real updates
Tridge has been concentrating on system stuff lately
Takeoff mode concept
MdB quadplane landing changes / improvements / making it easier
New stable point release to address some board issues
Particularly PixRacer issue Peter discovered
Px4 Pro support too
UTC0036 - Copter update with Randy
Thanks to everyone for helping with the release!
3.6.1 coming
PixRacer LED fix
LIDAR fixes
Garmin Lidarlite v3 support
Autodetect instead of enumeration?
Horrendously slow update rate without this fix
Read register to see if has the low value?
There’s the v3 high-range
Beta next week
UTC0039 - Rover update with Randy
3.5 coming
Beta soon
Sailboat!
Objects for sailboat and balancebot
Non-gps navigation
See Randy video
HectorSLAM
RPiLIDAR
Kinda-works
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P0Xblybi0aw
Controlled-environment is much better than non-controlled environment
Attitude-stabilized mount for LIDAR?
Move to Google cartographer?
Need the message-interval stuff in!
UTC0045 - Cube LEDs
UTC0049 - AUVSI
Two candidate booths
Hand-sketch coming for booth
To be presented at partner’s call next week
Hopefully can get several partners in
Only pay-for-play talks available now
UTC0053 - Canberra
23rd and 24th of March as previously discussed
Not aligning with Avalon as nobody international said they cared
Jeff was thinking of doing both….
Craig also finds it interesting
Higher risk of hot weather
Didn’t fly both previous years due to heat
Already three weeks later….
Tridge wants to make booking SOON!
If you want input on this decision, make sure tridge knows it!