dRonin 2018-07-29 release ("Inconceivable")

Hello world: it's time for another dRonin release, of our "inconceivable" development effort. There's exciting stuff in here, including the first flight-ready LQR control system (no longer are we stuck only with PID!)

As always, please read the release notes, and see the documentation at: http://dronin.org/docs/

Jump ahead to: Changes / Errata & troubleshooting

Major changes since last release:

As always, there's many small bug and usability fixes. But beyond that:

• Core controls and functionality improvements:
  • LQG (Linear Quadratic Gaussian) control added as an alternative to PID. To use, autotune and then configure LQG or LQGLeveling flight modes.
  • Increased maximum yaw axis PID limits, as some real crafts with small propellers were hitting them.
  • Introduced ability to limit the maximum speed commanded from individual motors (i.e. artificially limit kV to run 4S motors on 6S)
  • Ability added to specify thrust mode separately for each stabilization bank
  • Improvements made to control input smoothing/interpolation
  • Autotune now calculates hangtime and vertical / altitude hold control constants
  • Flipover mode
    • Drives motors on one "edge" to flip the vehicle back upright
    • "To configure, configure a quad with 3D output thrust, and flight mode FlipReversed. In this flight mode, hold the stick left, right, forward, or back (or other directions, I guess ;) and apply a small pulse of throttle to roll upright."
• Major rearchitecture of radio telemetry
  • RFM22b "protocol" removed, OpenLRS protocol is now always used
  • Substantial improvement to telemetry throughput
  • Simultaneous telemetry and control is reliable
  • Inter-operable with OpenLRSNG
  • Easier binding from within GCS (new Radio tab on config widget), TauLink gadget and RFM bind wizard removed
• Target and hardware support:
  • Revolution: support a wider variety of "OmnibusF4" clones, including barometer support.
  • POSIX simulator renamed from sim to flightd
  • Support for various sensors and receiver protocols added to flightd
• Usability improvements:
  • Default battery voltage ADC ratio changed from 15.7:1 (Attopilot etc.), to 11:1 (MultiWii/Naze32 and later derivatives)
  • FrSky telemetry now uses detected battery cell count
  • Manual buzzer now triggers actuator (motor) beeping as well
  • GCS warns when collective channel is configured on anything other than collective pitch helicopters
• Code organization and cleanup of deprecated items:
  • Removed FrSky PWM RSSI
  • Python API moved to Python 3 (Python 2 support is not a goal anymore)
  • Substantial improvements to Python API
  • API is now used to run flight scenarios on the simulator (flightd) in CI unit tests
  • Telemetry (UAVTalk) protocol handling improvements on both ground and flight side, including greater consistency with LibrePilot protocol changes.
• Numerous cleanups and bug fixes
• Adjustments to make Windows antivirus like the build artifacts more
• Numerous build system and automated testing improvements

Errata & Troubleshooting

• No support for F1 flight controllers. Use "Artifice" for these controllers.
• USB/F4: A long-standing bug prevents reconnecting the flight controller by USB without a FC reset (e.g. when powered by external power). This can worsen communications when using a flaky USB cable. We intend to devote significant effort to fixing this soon.
• Windows: Windows 7 or later is now required.
• Windows: If you are on Windows 7 or 8 and receive a message "api-ms-win-crt-runtime-l1-1-0.dll is missing from your computer," please see https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2999226
• Windows: If you are unable to communicate with the flight controller after plugging it in, please see this procedure for a possible solution.
• OS X: OS X Version 10.11 ("Yosemite") or later is required to run GCS.
• OS X: the application is unsigned; it is necessary to open Applications, right-click on dRonin GCS and select Open on the first launch.
• Linux: You may have to install .udev rules for the device. The .deb package attempts to do this automatically. To do this manually (e.g. from the tarfile), download the rules and then sudo cp dronin-linux_Release-20180212.udev /etc/udev/rules.d/45-dronin-permissions.rules && sudo udevadm control --reload-rules . Also please ensure your user is in both the plugdev and dialout groups as is appropriate for your distribution.

dRonin 2018-02-12.2 release ("Wired")

We've taken our time with the "Wired" release of dRonin, and hope you enjoy flying it just as much as we have enjoyed making it.

As always, please read the release notes, and see the documentation at: http://dronin.org/docs/

Please note that incorrect artifacts were briefly released, so this is a hotfix

Jump ahead to: Changes / Errata & troubleshooting

Major changes since last release:

As always, there's many small bug and usability fixes. But beyond that:

• Core controls changes:
  • Introduced a "velcompass" mode for planes that cannot get a good compass calibration. Uses the direction of travel (bearing) as heading.
  • Antiwindup math is now properly used on inner (rate) loop, reducing overshoot.
  • Static dT value provides a small noise improvement to PID control.
  • Efficiency improvements (reduced CPU use, more deterministic control latency) achieved by collapsing most sensor tasks into callbacks and overall sensor monitor into stabilization task.
  • Autotune's calculation of yaw parameters has been significantly improved.
  • Autotune's resource utilization has been reduced by eliminating the autotune task.
  • Preliminary support for 3D flight (reverse thrust) added.
  • The throttle curve on the vehicle pane has been removed, because it does not play well with 3D flight or autonomous modes. If a throttle curve is desired, please use the one on your radio.
  • Small improvements have been made to the fixed wing path follower.
• New functionality:
  • Buzzer can be controlled through an accessory channel.
  • Arming/disarming logic has been rewritten and is considerably safer.
  • Improvements to graphical OSD menus: corrections to menu bar displays, setting of camera angle, setting of battery capacity.
  • D-shot commands now supported, including sending "buzzer" values to motors.
  • RSSI is now lowpass-filtered so that it bounces around less.
  • 4WIF/ESC passthrough version number was increased to eliminate warning in blhelisuite 32.
  • RGB LED brightness is now dimmed to 33% when connected to USB.
  • Improvements have been made to telemetry (e.g. GCS connection) performance and reliability.
  • Improved performance of MS5611 pressure sensor.
• Target support:
  • More variants of sensors and SPI flash supported on Revolution target; now most OmniBusF4 clones work.
  • Improvements were made to OmnibusF4 / Revolution WS28xx LED handling
  • Support added for most OmniBusF3 variants.
• Behind the scenes:
  • Moved to Qt5.9.2 and newer flight compiler.
  • Preliminary support for loadable binary code extensions (not usable by end-users yet).
  • Python API was extended with proper object request APIs, XML canonicalization, multi-instance objects, etc.
  • Flight and GCS build properly with GCC 6 & 7.
  • Removed lots of duplicate code and makefile, and simplified the build system.
• Support for running on larger embedded systems (flightd/flyingpi)
  • 64 bit compilation support added
  • Direct connection to receiver without flyingpio is now possible
  • Improvements to output and cross-compilation
  • Preliminary support for outside flight dynamics simulation (FlightGear, YaSim, etc)

Errata & Troubleshooting

• You will probably need to reconfigure your craft's arming setting.
• No support for F1 flight controllers. Use "Artifice" for these controllers.
• USB/F4: A long-standing bug prevents reconnecting the flight controller by USB without a FC reset (e.g. when powered by external power). This can worsen communications when using a flaky USB cable. We intend to devote significant effort to fixing this soon.
• Windows: Windows 7 or later is now required.
• Windows: If you are on Windows 7 or 8 and receive a message "api-ms-win-crt-runtime-l1-1-0.dll is missing from your computer," please see https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2999226
• Windows: If you are unable to communicate with the flight controller after plugging it in, please see this procedure for a possible solution.
• OS X: OS X Version 10.11 ("Yosemite") or later is required to run GCS.
• OS X: the application is unsigned; it is necessary to open Applications, right-click on dRonin GCS and select Open on the first launch.
• Linux: You may have to install .udev rules for the device. The .deb package attempts to do this automatically. To do this manually (e.g. from the tarfile), download the rules and then sudo cp dronin-linux_Release-20180212.udev /etc/udev/rules.d/45-dronin-permissions.rules && sudo udevadm control --reload-rules . Also please ensure your user is in both the plugdev and dialout groups as is appropriate for your distribution.

dRonin 2017-07-17 Release ("Neat")

It's been a long time coming--- but we're pleased to announce the new "Neat" release of the dRonin flight controller firmware and ground control station.

A lot has changed, so please read the release notes carefully.

Please see the documentation at: http://dronin.org/docs/

@jhitesma has produced an excellent upgrading video that you may want to watch if this is your first time upgrading dRonin.

Jump ahead to: Changes / Errata & troubleshooting

Major changes since last release:

• Core flight firmware improvements
  • "NeoTune" next generation cross-correlation based tune algorithm yields better results-- even in the presence of vibration and other anomalies.
  • Improved sensor filtering implemented in the Sensor module.
  • Improvements to attitude estimation performance in the presence of vibration.
  • Support 4WIF passthrough for ESC programming across 'MSP' protocol interface.
  • Improvements to realtime behavior and removal of jitter.
  • Mixer architecture changes improve performance and allow custom mixers that use "accessory" data across outputs (and lays the groundwork for future control improvements).
  • Several fixes made to telemetry/configuration protocol performance across flight and GCS.
• Changes in supported targets
  • Support added for PikoBLX micro flight controller
  • Support added for Seriously Pro F3 EVO ("SPRF3E") and various clones (e.g. FrSky XSRF3E). Note that only the "EVO" SPRF3 variants are supported.
  • REMOVED SUPPORT FOR F1 FLIGHT CONTROLLERS (CC3D, NAZE). Use "Artifice" for these controllers.
• Target improvements
  • Support for WS2811/2812 LEDs added to select F3 targets (Lux, SPRF3E)
  • DShot using DMA implemented for OSD targets (original Brain, Seppuku, and BrainRE1)
  • Improvements to on screen display reliability on original Brain and Seppuku flight controllers.
  • Various improvements to the AQ32 target: flash erase, DAC annunciation, and WS2811 features. However, PWM RX support was removed.
  • Moved all Invensense targets to a common, improved sensor driver.
  • Simulation/flyingpi: move to OS-native threading model instead of embedding ChibiOS; put the simulator binaries for ARM and x86 in the Linux packages.
• External hardware support
  • Support for TBS Crossfire receiver protocol
  • Preliminary support for OmniPreSense millimeter-wave radars.
  • Improvements to IBus protocol reliability.
• Miscellaneous
  • Simple UI added for annunciator (LED, buzzer) settings.
  • Various bugfixes and performance improvements.
  • Improvements to UI styling.

Errata & Troubleshooting

• THIS RELEASE REMOVES SUPPORT FOR F1 FLIGHT CONTROLLERS (CC3D, NAZE). Use "Artifice" for these controllers.
• USB/F4: A long-standing bug prevents reconnecting the flight controller by USB without a FC reset (e.g. when powered by external power). This can worsen communications when using a flaky USB cable. We intend to devote significant effort to fixing this soon.
• Windows: Windows XP is no longer supported; Windows Vista or later is required for operation.
• Windows: If you are on Windows Vista, 7, or 8 and receive a message "api-ms-win-crt-runtime-l1-1-0.dll is missing from your computer," please see https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2999226
• Windows: If you are unable to communicate with the flight controller after plugging it in, please see this procedure for a possible solution.
• OS X: OS X Version 10.9 ("Mavericks") or later is required to run GCS.
• OS X: the application is unsigned; it is necessary to open Applications, right-click on dRonin GCS and select Open on the first launch.
• Linux: NOTE THE UDEV RULES HAVE CHANGED ONCE AGAIN you will have to install .udev rules for the device. The .deb package attempts to do this automatically. To do this manually (e.g. from the tarfile), download the rules and then sudo cp dronin-linux_Release-20170717.udev /etc/udev/rules.d/45-dronin-permissions.rules && sudo udevadm control --reload-rules . Also please ensure your user is in both the plugdev and dialout groups as is appropriate for your distribution.

dRonin 2017-02-13.1 Release ("Artifice")

Woot-- with the imminent release of new hardware-- it's time to kick this release out the door.

This was a little bit longer than our normal release cycle (4 months), and we spent some of the time distracted with hardware... but here we are, with plenty of new stuff.

Please see the documentation at: http://dronin.readme.io

@jhitesma has produced an excellent upgrading video that you may want to watch if this is your first time upgrading dRonin!.

Note: This is a hotfix to the Artifice release which corrects a major regression in the BrainRE1 target where LED support did not work, and includes some other minor fixes.

Jump ahead to: Changes / Errata & troubleshooting

Major changes since last release:

• Support for Seppuku flight controller added.
• BrainFPV fixed a critical bug in the RE1 target which caused in-flight resets when there were glitches in the vertical sync signal.
• Improved accuracy of BMP280 altimeters in the driver.
• Accuracy of attitude estimation for on-screen display and leveling modes improved on F3/F4 targets.
• Stabilization module improved to reject noise and compensate for jitter better.
• Autotune improved: measurement consistency was increased and F3/F4 targets now capture advanced data that will be used in the next generation of the algorithm.
• Preliminary support added for DShot 300/600/1200 on all targets.
• Preliminary support for DAC audio on Seppuku target-- audio telemetry and "beep" alarms.
• Added support for WS2811 LEDs on BrainRE1, Seppuku, Revolution, Quanton.
• Added new "AcroDyne" flight mode that allows dynamic acceleration at high stick deflection.
• Corrected an issue lowering telemetry link performance-- both directly attached USB and radio/serial links.
• Camera tilt angle for reprojection can now be set using TxPID module.
• Fixed a regression with CC3D PWM input and OneShot/high frequency output.
• Improvements to ESC calibration safety and interoperability with recent BLHeli.
• BrainRE1 was updated to use the proper buzzer infrastructure like other targets.
• Improvements to input wizard and receiver activity framework.
• RFM22B/TauLink/OpLink RSSI is now available as an RSSI source.
• Removed the PicoC language and existing waypoint persistence mechanisms in anticipation of future work.
• LightTelemetry improved for better utilization of slow telemetry links.
• Usability: Setup wizard added support for additional receiver types (SRXL, iBus)
• Usability: Input pane shows status of RC inputs.
• Usability: Switches are shown better in Input Wizard.
• Usability: Improved tool-tips and descriptions of UAV objects in many places.
• Usability: GCS now prevents from being started multiple times at once and associated anomalous behavior.
• Usability: Improvements to wiring diagrams in GCS.
• Improvements to various behavior on Raspberry Pi / FlyingPIO target.
• Infrastructure/developer improvements: cleanup, upgrade to Qt5.8, etc.
• Various crashes and defects fixed in GCS.

Errata & Troubleshooting

• USB/F4: A long-standing bug prevents reconnecting the flight controller by USB without a FC reset (e.g. when powered by external power). This can worsen communications when using a flaky USB cable. We intend to devote significant effort to fixing this soon.
• Windows: Windows XP is no longer supported; Windows Vista or later is required for operation.
• Windows: If you are on Windows Vista, 7, or 8 and receive a message "api-ms-win-crt-runtime-l1-1-0.dll is missing from your computer," please see https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2999226
• Windows: If you are unable to communicate with the flight controller after plugging it in, please see this procedure for a possible solution.
• OS X: OS X Version 10.9 ("Mavericks") or later is required to run GCS.
• OS X: the application is unsigned; it is necessary to open Applications, right-click on dRonin GCS and select Open on the first launch.
• Linux: NOTE THE UDEV RULES HAVE CHANGED ONCE AGAIN you will have to install .udev rules for the device. The .deb package attempts to do this automatically. To do this manually, download the udev permissions file and then run sudo cp _package.udev /etc/udev/rules.d/45-dronin-permissions.rules && sudo udevadm control --reload-rules . Also please ensure your user is in both the plugdev and dialout groups as is appropriate for your distribution.
• Naze32: support is still early. There is no support for flashing boards in GCS. The procedure to flash a Naze32 is here. Note that this doesn't upgrade your settings.

dRonin 2016-10-04.1 Release ("Quixote")

Hey again everyone! Time for a new release!

We've run a quick release cycle — less than 2.5 months — but we still have plenty of goodies for everyone.

Please see the documentation at: http://dronin.readme.io

@jhitesma has produced an excellent upgrading video that you may want to watch if this is your first time upgrading dRonin!

Note: that this is a minor hotfix that improves appearance in a couple of places (taskbar and BrainRE1 hardware config appearance) and corrects an issue with the input wizard.

Jump ahead to: Changes / Errata & troubleshooting

Major changes since last release:

• Support for 'ExpoM' allows more intuitive and better control of stick response. Please see the documentation on configuring rates here
• Support cut-down versions of Revolution flight controller that do not have advanced sensors.
• Control deadbands allow having lower gains when errors are very low. This lowers wear on actuators / servos on planes, and can improve propwash-induced wiggles on multirotors.
• Initial support for buzzer on DTFc, Lux, Quanton, and Naze32 targets.
• Preliminary support for direct-character OSD on AQ32 and forthcoming targets with onboard MAX7456/AB7456 OSD IC.
• Support different blink/buzzer error codes for flight alarms from annunciator subsystem.
• Preliminary support added for "FlyingPi" Raspberry Pi shield and running the flight code directly on Raspberry Pi 2 and 3.
• Preliminary support to run on PlayUAVOSD hardware, receiving MSP data and displaying advanced graphical OSD.
• IPv6 support on simulator/control sockets.
• Upgrader and cloud service was improved so that upgrade now works correctly to/from most development builds.
• S.Port telemetry reliability is improved on F3 flight controllers.
• Acroplus integral handling significantly improved.
• Support additional UART/alternate multiport configuration on BrainRE1.
• Support for 560Hz / 760us centerpoint servos on output pane.
• Remaining flight time estimates from the battery subsystem are improved.
• Receiver activity detection used in the input wizard is improved, particularly in the cases when RSSI channels are injected.
• Handle cases where timer resources used for PPM clash with output channels somewhat better (CC3D, Sparky2).
• Core controls: latency from manual input to actuators has been significantly reduced, especially on high-update-rate radios.
• A common driver is now used for most Invensense sensors.
• There is a functional crash-reporting system for the GCS on all three platforms, helping us to improve reliability of the ground suite.
• GCS is now built with MSVC on Windows and includes the Visual C runtime and software OpenGL for platforms that need it.
• Many, many usability and reliability improvements to the ground control suite.

Errata & Troubleshooting

• Windows: Windows XP is no longer supported; Windows Vista or later is required for operation.
• Windows: If you are on Windows Vista, 7, or 8 and receive a message "api-ms-win-crt-runtime-l1-1-0.dll is missing from your computer," please see https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/2999226
• Windows: If you are unable to communicate with the flight controller after plugging it in, please see this procedure for a possible solution.
• OS X: OS X Version 10.9 ("Mavericks") or later is required to run GCS.
• OS X: the application is unsigned; it is necessary to open Applications, right-click on dRonin GCS and select Open on the first launch.
• Linux: NOTE THE UDEV RULES HAVE CHANGED you will have to install .udev rules for the device. The .deb package attempts to do this automatically. To do this manually, download the udev permissions file and then run sudo cp _package.udev /etc/udev/rules.d/45-dronin-permissions.rules && sudo udevadm control --reload-rules . Also please ensure your user is in both the plugdev and dialout groups as is appropriate for your distribution.
• Buzzer: existing bootloaders do not know about the buzzer and do not drive it, which can result in a beep or spooky ghost noises during flashing operations. Also, some Naze32 buzzers are unsupported because they have the opposite polarity from modern Naze (and will always beep).
• SUMD: Ranges have changed for higher resolution and consistency with other protocols. Be sure to recalibrate your radio if using SUMD.
• Naze32: support is still early. There is no support for flashing boards in GCS. The procedure to flash a Naze32 is here. Note that this doesn't upgrade your settings.

dRonin 2016-07-20.1 Release ("Samsara")

Choo choo! All aboard the hype train for the third release of dRonin. There's been a lot of work on various features (especially command reprojection-- headfree and camera tilt compensation) and two new targets (the BrainRE1 and DTFc flight controllers)!

Please see the documentation at: http://dronin.readme.io

Jump ahead to: Changes / Errata & troubleshooting

This software is provided without any warranty. Use at your own risk!

Note (2016-07-23): This is a minor hotfix to the prior 2016-07-20 release. A bug that could theoretically affect BrainRE1 stability was fixed (though no crashes related to this have been observed on the Samsara release/branch).

Major changes since last release:

• Camera tilt reprojection allows adjusting yaw and roll control to put the axis of roll rotation in the middle of a camera view. It makes flight characteristics a lot more intuitive when flying FPV with significant camera tilt.
• Headfree mode allows "locking" roll and pitch to the yaw that the quadcopter was at when the mode was enabled. Note that this requires calibration for boards with a compass, and will (very slowly) drift on flight controllers without one.
• Support for BrainFPV RE1 and DTFc.
• Support for iBus and SRXL receiver protocols added.
• Timer autoresolution: timers automatically detect the maximum count rate that they can support and use it. Oneshot is now faked when configured on CC3D with incompatible receiver protocol (PWM, PPM on pin 3).
• Autotune usability is improved with a brand new wizard and workflow.
• Cell-count autodetection has been added to the battery module.
• New releases can be announced on the welcome screen.
• Logging performance has been improved and parameters changed to support OpenLager's high data rate modes.
• Deprecated features removed: MWRate flight mode, Throttle PID Attenuation (use motor input/output curve fit on the output pane instead)
• Flight efficiency improvements
• Vibration analysis module now does the FFT computation on the GCS side
• Various bugfixes: GCS crashes, ADC RSSI off-by-one channel error, DSM autodetection, MSP altitude display, Lux ports display
• Preliminary support for WS2812 LEDs on BrainRE1
• Support for IR lap transponder functionality on BrainRE1
• Crash reporting added to Mac OS X builds
• Quanton: USART6 added
• USB power no longer prevents using another telemetry port or protocol

Errata & Troubleshooting

• Windows: If you are unable to communicate with the flight controller after plugging it in, please see this procedure for a possible solution.
• Windows: If using older Intel integrated graphics, you may need to follow this procedure to start GCS.
• Windows: If you receive the message "The program cannot start because MSVCR120.dll is missing from your computer," you must download the Microsoft Visual C++ runtime to proceed. Please download the vcredist_x86.exe version of the package. This is not usually necessary because most computers have installed software that requires this before.
• OS X: the application is unsigned; it is necessary to open Applications, right-click on dRonin GCS and select Open on the first launch.
• Linux: * NOTE THE UDEV RULES HAVE CHANGED* you will have to install .udev rules for the device. The .deb package attempts to do this automatically. To do this manually, download the udev permissions file and then run sudo cp _package.udev /etc/udev/rules.d/45-dronin-permissions.rules && sudo udevadm control --reload-rules . Also please ensure your user is in both the plugdev and dialout groups.
• Naze32: support is still early. There is no support for flashing boards in GCS. The procedure to flash a Naze32 is here.

dRonin 2016-04-09.2 Release ("Tanto").

This is the second major release of the dRonin flight controller firmware. It feels like we've made a lot of progress– and we hope you agree! Significant effort was put into usability, reliability, and the upgrade process, and new features like HangTime (low-power stabilization) are a lot of fun.

Please see our new documentation at: http://dRonin.readme.io

Jump ahead to: Changes / Errata & troubleshooting / Download files

This software is provided without any warranty. Use at your own risk!

Note (2016-04-28): This is a minor hotfix to the prior 20160409 release. Support is added for inverted SBus on Naze32Rev6 and Lux; behavior of PPM on Naze32 is improved; and an old defect preventing bootloader use on some Windows systems with ACPI buttons was corrected. There's no need to upgrade from a prior 20160409 if you're not experiencing these issues.

Major changes since last release:

• Upgrade simplified for all targets except Naze32 and PipXtreme. To upgrade, just start the ground control system and then plug in the flight board, and carefully follow the on-screen prompts. Further information is in the documentation. Note: you may receive some warnings about objects changing and fields being added during the upgrade process; this is normal.
• HangTime allows controlled maneuvering for a limited time at zero throttle in multirotors. HangTime should be used with switch arming and power settings that are well under hover power. See the HangTime documentation for more details
• Intelligent clipping management added to improve vehicle performance when motors are near minimum or maximum speed. In these cases, an "Actuators" alarm will fire that is visible on on-screen displays (Brain, MWOSD).
• The Naze32 rev6 flight controller is now supported.
• Telemetry and configuration subsystem is now considerably faster to connect and more reliable.
• Many modules are now automatically enabled or disabled based on port configuration.
• Further improvements to CCPM helicopter flight modes and configurability.
• Support for the Storm32 Brushless Gimbal Controller across most targets.
• Support for sending GPS data across MSP protocol to MWOSD.
• Support for OpenLog across most larger targets.
• Support for non-inverted SBus, for ports that do not have an integrated inverter or for radios that send non-inverted SBus.
• Significant improvements to performance of altitude-hold mode.
• Additional port types and configurations are supported on the Revolution, Quanton, and Colibri flight controllers.
• External magnetometers supported on the Revolution flight controller.
• New failsafe flight mode to allow deliberate triggering of failsafe behavior with flight mode switch.
• Improvement to board hardware configuration for Lumenier LUX and simulator targets.
• Retrofit of USB subsystem in ground control software eliminates a major cause of crashes and hangs.
• Included minimal version of Android GCS (as an .apk file for side-loading).
• Vehicle setup wizard now follows best practices-- no standard PWM output, enables spin while armed behavior.
• Freed resources-- CPU, memory, and flash-- across all flight boards
• Board-specific ADC pin names display in GCS to improve battery module usability.
• Ensured consistent support for receiver and telemetry protocols across ports on all targets.
• Renamed targets for usability: "revomini" is now "revolution", "coptercontrol" is now CC3D.
• Acro+ insanity factor is now configurable on the expert stabilization configuration pane.
• Actuator curve fit default value changed to 0.9; it is now configurable on the expert stabilization configuration pane.
• "Apply" button removed from most screens of GCS in favor of a single "Save" button.
• Significantly improved dialog to import saved UAV configurations.
• Bugs where objects could fail to save in the UAV Object Browser were corrected.
• Input wizard is much less likely to falsely detect axis activity.
• Various other usability and look and feel improvements to the ground control software.
• MWRate and Throttle PID Attenuation are now deprecated and will be removed in a future release.
• Development infrastructure and upstream libraries upgraded: Arm 2015Q4 tools, qt-5.51, STM32 Libraries.
• Ease of configuring Windows development environment improved.
• Python API augmented to have additional functionality to read configurations and to more flexibly handle logs.
• Windows installer now ensures that old files from previous installations are removed to prevent erratic behavior.

Errata & Troubleshooting

• Windows: If you are unable to communicate with the flight controller after plugging it in, please see this procedure for a possible solution.
• Windows: If using older Intel integrated graphics, you may need to follow this procedure to start GCS.
• Windows: If you receive the message "The program cannot start because MSVCR120.dll is missing from your computer," you must download the Microsoft Visual C++ runtime to proceed. Please download the vcredist_x86.exe version of the package. This is not usually necessary because most computers have installed software that requires this before.
• OS X: the application is unsigned; it is necessary to open Applications, right-click on dRonin GCS and select Open on the first launch.
• Linux: you will have to install .udev rules for the device. The .deb package attempts to do this automatically. To do this manually, download the udev permissions file and then run sudo cp _package.udev /etc/udev/rules.d/45-dronin-permissions.rules && sudo udevadm control --reload-rules . Also please ensure your user is in both the plugdev and dialout groups.
• Naze32: support is still early. There is no support for flashing boards in GCS. The procedure to flash a Naze32 is here.

dRonin 2016-01-20 release ("renatus")

This is the first stable release of the dRonin flight controller firmware. We've been flying and having a lot of fun with this, and hope you will too!

This software is provided without any warranty. Use at your own risk!

The dRonin project is a fork of Tau Labs/OpenPilot flight firmware. The following changes have occurred since the previous Tau Labs endomorphism release:

• Safety: Corrections to arm-switch configuration have been made to prevent inadvertent arming.
• Safety: Reliability improvements to SBus protocol and switch arming.
• Safety: OpenLRS synchronization and reliability improvements when used with the internal radio in Sparky2 or Revolution flight controllers.
• Safety: Fix a stack overflow in attitude task relevant to navigation use cases.
• Safety: Prevent uncommanded arming when input ranges are configured to invalid values.
• Safety: Prevent invalid pulse lengths in OneShot configurations when flight controller is unable to keep up.
• Safety: Prevent motors spinning up when "Test outputs" is left checked and the vehicle setup wizard is used.
• Direct native support for BrainFPV flight controller.
• Support for the Lumenier LUX flight controller.
• Autotune is much more reliable and accurate.
• Autotune now works on F1 targets (Naze32 and CC3D).
• Adjustments to make return-to-home initial climb more intuitive and robust.
• Improvements to event processing to reduce system jitter and improve system performance.
• Support for VTX configuration on BrushedSparky flight controller.
• Support for Multiwii Serial Protocol (MSP) to allow use of mwosd on-screen displays.
• Support for displaying flight controller alarms and reset reasons on on-screen displays.
• AltitudeHold-- maximum climb and descent rates may be configured separately.
• Various corrections to helicopter support, including improvements to collective curve support.
• PicoC support is restored on Colibri and FlyingF4.
• New 16666Hz PWM output rate as preferred value for brushed flight controllers-- tradeoff between resolution and speed.
• Flight controller resources freed, allowing full support for navigation on Sparky1 F3 platform.
• Adjustments to gyro rate and filter defaults on many targets to make more sense.
• Improvements to deadbands and ranges across all flight modes
• Correctness fixes to battery module and analog-to-digital conversion.
• OpenLRS telemetry of battery data now works correctly.
• On-screen display of imperial units corrected.
• Naze32 now supports battery monitoring, ADC, and the board setup wizard.
• Ground control system improvements:
  • The audio-notification module may again be enabled.
  • The UAV object browser now has search functionality.
  • XML UAV object export now produces output that is easier to compare with outside tools (diff).
  • Input wizard behavior is improved-- will no longer generate short ranges or unbalanced switch channels.
  • Various usability, reliability, performance, and presentation improvements.
  • There is a crash reporting system on Windows and Linux environments.
  • "AutoTown", a cloud-sharing environment for autotune results.
  • GCS is much less likely to hang / become unresponsive on OS X.
  • Usage reporting infrastructure.
  • Crash reporting infrastructure on Mac OS X and Linux.
  • Branding / project name changes and improvements.
• Python API is enhanced to support enums, direct pySerial communication with flight boards, etc.
• Build: It is now considerably easier to set up a build environment on Windows.
• Build: Packaging and reproducibility improvements.
• Advanced: Actuator curve fitting option allows climb/descent
• Advanced: OpenLog support on select targets

Errata:

• This is Release-20160120.3, the first hotfix release of Renatus. Minor issues with helicopter support, throttle reversal, firmware in Debian package, and BrainFPV alarms were corrected.
• If you are having problems after updating the firmware, e.g., the flight controllers is in a reboot-loop, erase all settings in your flight controller as follows:
  • In the GCS, go to the firmware screen and click Rescue, then connect your flight controller to USB. In the lower-right corner of the firmware screen, there is a "partition browser". Right click on the "Settings" patition and select "Erase". After the partition has been erased, click on "Boot" and your flight controller will have been reset to factory defaults.
  • It is generally possible to apply a .uav file of settings exported from Tau Labs to dRonin flight boards.
• If using older Intel integrated graphics on Windows, you may need to follow this procedure to start GCS.
• If you receive the message "The program cannot start because MSVCR120.dll is missing from your computer," you must download the Microsoft Visual C++ runtime to proceed. This is not usually necessary because most computers have installed software that requires this before.
• Autotune on CC3D requires careful attention to input configuration because of memory limitations. Unused control types should not be enabled (e.g. disable PPM if you are using S.Bus). It's recommended you not configure over 5 input channels, too. In the next release we'll try to have more resources available so this is less critical.
• Naze32 support is still early. There is no support for flashing boards in GCS. There is also currently no support for Naze32 rev6.
• For Linux you will have to install .udev rules for the device. The .deb package attempts to do this automatically. To do this manually, download the udev permissions file and then run sudo cp _package.udev /etc/udev/rules.d/45-dronin-permissions.rules && sudo udevadm control --reload-rules
• The Mac OS X artifact is unsigned; it is necessary to open Applications, right-click on dRonin GCS and select Open on the first launch.