1.15

PX4-Autopilot v1.15 Release Notes

This contains changes to PX4 since the last major release (v1.14).

::: warning The PX4 v1.15 release is in beta testing, pending release. Add new features here that are going to be in both main and the PX4 v1.15 release. :::

Read Before Upgrading

TBD ...

Please continue reading for upgrade instructions.

Major Changes

• [New] Throw Mode PX4-Autopilot#21170
• Improved Optical Flow Support PX4-Autopilot#21769

Upgrade Guide

Other changes

Hardware Support

• [Pixhawk Standards] Pixhawk Autopilot Bus (PAB) Split Base ID and FMUM ID PX4-Autopilot#22639
• [New Hardware] Support for FMUv6XRT - Pixhawk 6X-RT PX4-Autopilot#22263
• [New Hardware] MicoAir H743 PX4-Autopilot#23218
• 3DR Control Zero Classic Support Improvements PX4-Autopilot#22971
• [New Hardware] ARK Mosaic-X5 RTK GPS PX4-Autopilot#22735
• [New Hardware] ARK Pi6X Flow PX4-Autopilot#22829 New parameter: VT_QC_ALT_LOSS
• [FMUv6X]: Increase TELEM2 RX buffer size to increase throughput. PX4-Autopilot#21660
• Feature: Add power module selector for Auterion power modules. PX4-Autopilot#22073
• lights: Add LP5562 RGBLED driver. PX4-Autopilot#21649
• Enable EKF2 on KakuteH7 / KakuteH7v2 / KakuteH7mini. PX4-Autopilot#21961
• cubepilot: Add support for 4. variant of Orange+. PX4-Autopilot#22039

Common

• SYS_MC_EST_GROUP has been removed and there are now dedicated parameters EKF2_EN, ATT_EN, and LPE_EN for Switching State Estimators. Most setups should enable EKF2_EN (the default). Changed in PX4-Autopilot#22567.
• [Experimental] Zenoh pico Support PX4-Autopilot#22017
• [Bootloader] add force-erase option and bootloader version PX4-Autopilot#22777
• [uORB] Allow for more than 255 uORB messages PX4-Autopilot#21923
• Feature: Improve mission resume (e.g. replay gimbal and camera commands of a survey) PX4-Autopilot#21710
• Feature: Resume mission with flight speed from previous mission items PX4-Autopilot#21714
• Feature: Warn user when navigation failure is imminent PX4-Autopilot#21876
• Navigator: Geofence improvements PX4-Autopilot#22394
• Improvement: Commander: trigger warning when arming denied due to check failure. PX4-Autopilot#22885
• Improvement: Commander: make failsafe warnings shorter PX4-Autopilot#22886
• Support for a remote parameter database. PX4-Autopilot#22836
• New platform independent UART interface. PX4-Autopilot#21723
• Feature: Obstacle Avoidance in Missions and Safe Landing, and the underlying Path Planning Interface, are no longer supported because they can no longer be maintained.

Removals:

• Features: Obstacle Avoidance in Missions and Safe Landing, and the underlying Path Planning Interface, are no longer supported. The PX4-Avoidance repository has been archived. Code for the path planner interface is still present in this release, but is expected to be removed in future releases.

Note that this code was abandoned due to architectural constraints of the implementation making it hard to maintain, extend, and adopt. PX4 now advocates more generic and scalable approaches for integrating these kinds of features, such as using the PX4 ROS 2 Interface Library to replace the PX4 flight modes with enhanced versions written using ROS 2.

Control

• [offboard] ros2 offboard control allows for direct motors and servo control. Added in PX4-Autopilot#22222.

Estimation

• [EKF2] Migrate params to YAML PX4-Autopilot#22982
• [EKF2] New parameter: EKF2_DELAY_MAX - Defines the delay between the current time and delayed-time horizon. PX4-Autopilot#22983
• [EKF2] Improve heading and gyro bias convergence when no mag is used PX4-Autopilot#21691
• [EKF2] Add vision attitude error filter PX4-Autopilot#21791
• [EKF2] Refactor EKF2 optical flow fusion PX4-Autopilot#22377
• [EKF2] Refactor GNSS control fusion PX4-Autopilo#22553
• [EKF2] Use Joseph stabilized covariance update in EKF2 PX4-Autopilo#22770

Sensors

• NXP UWB SR150 Driver Fixes PX4-Autopilot#1123
• Septentrio GPS Updates PX4-Autopilot#23386
• Ublox add UBX-RXM-RTCM for RTCM input status PX4-Autopilot#21595
• Add TDK IIM42653 IMU driver PX4-Autopilo#21019
• Feature: Make airspeed sensor configuration easier and consistent with other sensors. PX4-Autopilot#22510 New parameter: SYS_HAS_NUM_ASPD, FW_USE_AIRSPD
• logger: log all GPS data. PX4-Autopilot#22421

Simulation

• Gazebo: Support for Advanced Plane, a simulated fixed-wing vehicle that provides better aerodynamic simulation than the regular plane. Added to PX4 in PX4-Autopilot#22167 and gz-sim#2185 (advanced lift drag plugin).
• Gazebo: The environment variable PX4_SIM_MODEL can now be used to indicate the simulation model. This supersedes PX4_GZ_MODEL, which is now deprecated. Added to PX4 in PX4-Autopilot#22400.
• Gazebo: Separation of Gazebo and PX4 SITL. The two parts of the simulation are now separated. They can be independently launched in any order, and even run on different hosts across a network. Gazebo additional supports drag-and-drop via the resource spawner in Gazebo GUI. Added to PX4 in PX4-Autopilot#22467.
• JMAVSim Simulator is now community supported. It has been deprecated as part of the official PX4 development toolchain in order to focus our efforts on Gazebo.
• [Tools/simulation/gz]: load ApplyLinkWrench plugin by default PX4-Autopilot#21874
• Allow user to specify Gazebo Garden/Harmony render engine in simulations. PX4-Autopilot#22693
• Add support for quadtailsitter in SITL Gazebo. PX4-Autopilot#20558
• Feature: Parameter for enabling/disabling PX4's internal battery simulator in SITL. PX4-Autopilot#22710 New parameter: SIM_BAT_ENABLE
• [gz-bridge] fix GZ timeout for slow starting simulations. PX4-Autopilot#22194

Ethernet

• Ethernet: The default static IP address (used as a fallback for DHCP) has changed from 192.168.0.3 to 10.41.10.2. This avoids potential conflicts where the192.168.0.x range is used by routers for WIFI/ethernet networks. Changed in PX4 in PX4-Autopilot#22517.

MAVLink

• Gimbal: fix auto RC and MAVLink mode. PX4-Autopilot#23236

uXRCE-DDS Interface

• uXRCE-DDS: DDS Topics YAML now allows the use of subscription_multi to specify that indicated ROS 2 topics are sent to a separate uORB topic instance reserved for ROS 2. This allows PX4 to differentiate between updates from ROS and those from PX4 uORB publishers. With this change ROS2 users can now decide if the messages that they are sending to PX4 will overlap with the existing uORB ones or be kept in separate instances. Added in PX4 in PX4-Autopilot#22266.
• Move VOXL from microdds client to uxrce dds client. PX4-Autopilot#22997
• Add parameter to disable time synchronization between Agent and Client. PX4-Autopilot#21757 New parameter: UXRCE_DDS_SYNCT Documentation: Middleware uXRCE-DDS / ROS 2 / Gazebo Simulation

ROS 2

• PX4 ROS 2 Interface Library: A new C++ library that simplifies controlling PX4 from ROS 2. PX4-Autopilot#20707 Supports adding flight modes in ROS 2 that are peers of the PX4 modes running on the flight controller.
• Multicopter Go-to Interface: PX4-Autopilot#22375

Platform Changes

Multi-Rotor

• [New Mode] Throw launch: Start a multicopter by throwing it into the air. Added to PX4 in PX4-Autopilot#21170.
• [New Mode] Position Slow Mode: A slower version of Position mode, where the maximum horizontal velocity, vertical velocity and yaw-rate axes can be configured to lower values (using parameters, RC controller knobs/switches, or MAVLink). Added to PX4 in PX4-Autopilot#22102.
• [Helicopter] add tail servo support PX4-Autopilot#21274
• [Helicopter] Add back support for coaxial helicopters with the new actuator allocation. Documentation, PX4-Autopilot#22083
• [Improvement] multicopter position control parameter descriptions PX4-Autopilo#21729
• [Improvement] Default motor PWM limits minimum 1100 maximum 1900. Default changed from 900us to 1000us! Documentation, PX4-Autopilot#21513

VTOL

• VTOL back-transition: expose tilting time as parameter and reduce overall duration. PX4-Autopilot#21760 New parameter: VT_BT_TILT_DUR
• Feature: VTOL Tailsitter: add automatic pitch ramps also in Stabilized mode PX4-Autopilot#22584
• Improvement: VTOL forward thrust assist: treat Descend as Land mode. PX4-Autopilot#22843
• Refactor uncommanded descend Quad-Chute. PX4-Autopilot#21598

Fixed-Wing

• Simplified airspeed sensor configuration: Replace parameter CBRK_AIRSPD_CHK with SYS_HAS_NUM_ASPD and renamed parameter FW_ARSP_MODE to FW_USE_AIRSPD. To be able to arm without an airspeed sensor set SYS_HAS_NUM_ASPD to 0. To not use the airspeed sensor data in the controller, set FW_USE_AIRSPD to 0. Added to PX4 in PX4-Autopilot#22510.
• Improvement: Fixed-wing high (dynamic) wind hardening PX4-Autopilot#21764
• Attitude controller cleanup PX4-Autopilot#22472
• Feature: FW TECS: rename FW_T_THR_DAMP to FW_T_THR_DAMPING and FW_T_I_GAIN_THR to FW_T_THR_INTEG as the interpretation of these parameters has changed. PX4-Autopilot#22548
• Feature: Enable high rate logging for VTOL PX4-Autopilot#22700)
• Feature: Add functionality to disable rate control of certain axes in fixed-wing Acro. PX4-Autopilot#21566 New parameter: FW_ACRO_AXS_CTRL
• Add Fixed-wing path following as a separate controller state. PX4-Autopilot#21376
• Added PerformanceModel for fixed wing. PX4-Autopilot#22091 New parameter: FW_S_CEILING -

Rover

• Aion R1: ESC Driver for Roboclaw motor controller. This comes with build instructions and support for the Aion R1, a new differential drive rover, along with information about integrating the Roboclaw motor controller.
• Add dedicated Rover build variants to px4/fmu-{v5,v5x,v6c,v6x}. PX4-Autopilot#22675