ArduPlane 2.6 Released!

The main new features in this release are:

• wind estimation
• long term dead reckoning support
• wheeled takeoff and landing support
• optional new roll/pitch/yaw controllers from Jon Challinger

For a description of the first 3 new features have a look at the previous post. All of these features have been test flown on my PulseXT 40 and have performed very well.

The new roll/pitch/yaw controllers from Jon can be enabled by building with

 #define APM_CONTROL ENABLED

in your APM_Config.h. If you enable the new controllers then I strongly suggest you read Jons blog post about the new controllers and how to tune them. These controllers are still experimental, but if we get good feedback on them from users we will quite likely adopt them as the standard controllers in a future release.

Other changes in 2.60 include:

• a new RECEIVER_RSSI_PIN compile time option, to allow you to display receiver RSSI via MAVLink. This should be useful for FPV flying.
• an important fix from Jason Short for an erase bug in the dataflash. If you use dataflash logs then please erase them after loading this release to ensure the pages are properly initialised.
• support for the new features in the new MTK GPS firmware
• updates to the configuration parameters for the Mount code. If you use the mount code, then please check your parameters carefully, as some things have changed.
• a fix to the JUMP command in missions, which solved a problem where the wrong command could sometimes be run
• a fix to the initial yaw from AHRS when using a compass
• new FENCE_ACTION_REPORT value for FENCE_ACTION
• new "OBC" failsafe code as a compile time option
• new RST_MISSION_CH option
• new STICK_MIXING option
• support for dual stabilisation mounts (eg. one camera and one antenna)
• removed old CLI switch and dip switch support
• fixed a derivative filter bug that could have a small affect on AHRS attitude
• fixed LOITER_TIME to match MAVLink spec (time is in seconds)
• added FBWB_ELEV_REV option

Happy flying!