PX4 Sync / Q&A: April 23, 2025

[farhang]

PX4 Sync / Q&A: April 23, 2025
Dronecode Calendar

Agenda

• Announcements
• Future Events
• Flight Testing Update
• Release Discussion
• Bug Report / Q&A

Announcements

No announcements today.

Next Dronecode Meetup

Nothing scheduled yet.

Future Events

• ICUAS May 14-17, Charlotte, USA
• ROSCon 2025 Singapore: ROSCon 2025

Flight Testing Update

The team at Ascend Engineering (Chicago). are running flight testing for the community.

How to reach out to the team

• GitHub: Tag user @PX4/testflights
• Discord: #flight-testing
• Weekly on the PX4 Dev Call

How to Request Testing (GitHub)

• Write down the steps to test your issue/pull request
  • Make sure to note the risk involved in flying
  • Write down things to look out for / anticipate - eg: “we are looking for no yaw jumps”
• Add issue/pull request to the Flight Testing project board
• Make sure to specify any hardware/software requirements as much as possible

Resources:

• Flight Testing Project Board
• Tests Cards

Comments / Discussion:

• Issues:
• Tested:
• Fixed Wing / VTOL:
• QGC Build: Stable

Release Discussion / Updates

v1.16 Release Discussion

We are going to reset the release branch, to bring in critical fixes that went into main, and then tag a new beta. We are still chasing a few blockers tracked on the project board. The flight test team will continue to test the latest v1.16 beta.

If anyone has any critical fixes please add them to the project board.

• GitHub - PX4/PX4-Autopilot at v1.16.0-beta1

• Fixed Wing known blockers:

• Multi Copter known blockers:

• Rover Blockers:

• Optical Flow:

• Simulation known blockers:

Resources

• Release Project Board Link

Bug report / Q&A

1- Question regarding metadata updates on documentation:
When docs where hosted on its own repo we had an autocommit bot that moved metadata between repos. Now that we are all-in place, we need to work on a non-intrusive way to make this happen.

It was discussed that we do the following:

• Have a test that fails when missing metadata updates. Also warns users this happened and gives instructions on what to do.
• Create a script that can be run locally that makes the changes

2- @dakejahl thread reply to be discussed!

PRs for Review

[dakejahl]

I would like to discuss how rangefinder data is fused into the EKF for altitude estimation. Altitude hold is poor indoors or outdoors in windy conditions. I’d like to discuss how rangefinder data effects the Z position state estimate and the role of the terrain state estimate.

Poor altitude hold on main (Flow + rangefinder)

Here’s an outdoor flight. EKF replay is enabled in this log. This is based on main from today with #24106 and #24751 merged into it. This is just a takeoff and hold position from a gravel driveway in position mode flying with RC.

Dexi airframe (quad)

• No GPS
• Distance sensor
• Optical Flow
• Barometer

Mostly default params except reduced EKF2_RNG_NOISE to 0.01. So the EKF2_HGT_REF is gps (so it fallbacks to baro), although throughout most of the flight “range aiding” was active, but doesn’t appear to work very well since the altitude is fluctuating quite a bit (there was a little bit of wind). I kept the throttle around 0 for most of the flight, for simply testing altitude hold performance. MPC_HOLD_DZ is left at the default of 0.1.

Flight Review