We’re very excited to announce the release of PX4 v1.6, the latest version of the Dronecode Flight Stack (PX4 Pro). This firmware represents a huge increase in both usability, functionality, and stability/robustness since our last significant delivery back in August 2016 (PX4 v1.5.0).
Just a few of the new features and enhancements in this release are:
- New flight modes for Fixed Wing – Acro and Rattitude
- New uLog logging format that directly logs uORB topics for more accurate time stamping. This is already supported for review and analysis here: http://review.px4.io
- Improvements to camera triggering to make it easier to use and and provide better real-time feedback
- Support for survey flights in multicopter and fixed wing with an intuitive UI
- Temperature calibration and compensation
- Support for MAVLink and PWM controlled gimbals
- Support for generic helicopters and Blade 130 mixer
- Improved robustness in EKF2 and hardening against marginal GPS reception.
- Significant improvements to user experience for both the Qualcomm Snapdragon Flight and the Intel® Aero Ready to Fly Drone
- Support for STM32F7 and NuttX Update to a recent release
- New hardware support including the Crazyflie v2, FMUv4 PRO and FMUv5 (Special thanks to Drotek and Team Blacksheep for donating the FMUv4 and FMUv5 hardware!)
This is also the most tested and hardened PX4 release to date. The dedicated test team that have done hundreds of hours of testing, on all the major vehicle platforms and using all the main reference flight controller hardware.
A breakdown of the testing since the last stable release (1.5.5) is listed below:
- 2257 commits tested.
- 847 total flights on 12 different vehicles and 6 different flight controllers:
- Pixhawk mini (DJI F450): 554
- Pixhawk mini (Generic Quad): 11
- Pixhawk 1 (DJI F450): 15
- Pixhawk mini (Hexa): 11
- Pixhawk mini (Phantom FW): 17
- Pixhawk mini (QAV 250): 28
- Pixracer (DJI F450): 34
- Pixracer (Flipsport): 140
- Pixhawk 3 Pro (DJI F450): 27
- Dropix (VTOL): 1
- Intel® Aero Ready to Fly Drone: 6
- Snapdragon (200qx): 3
- 6 releases tested: 1.6.
0-rc1, 1.6.0-rc2, 1.6.0-rc3, 1.6.0-rc4, 1.6, 1.6.1 - 22 PR’s tested: 6362, 6438, 6440, 6505, 6633, 6756, 6777, 6862, 6863, 6920, 7003, 7009, 7017, 7036, 7095, 7260, 7265, 7268, 7274, 7281, 7287, 7346
The firmware is already available in QGroundControl (for access to the best UI you may choose to use the “daily build” here). We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the whole PX4 Development Team for this outstanding work.
