PX4/PX4-Autopilot: Stable Release v1.14.0

Major Changes

Dynamic Control Allocation

• Improved Preflight Failure Check Reporting
• Failsafe Simplification and Simulation
• Default Simulation is now New Gazebo
• Improved ROS 2 Interface thanks to uXRCE-DDS

Read Before Upgrading

The v1.14 release includes a few breaking changes for users upgrading from previous versions, in particular we are moving away from using mixer files to define the vehicle geometry, motor mappings and actuators.

Additionally, we deprecated the Fast-RTPS interface used by ROS 2 in favor of a much cleaner solution that doesn't require a custom build target, and goes away with the additional message generation step.

Please see our detailed upgrade instructions on our docs.

Dynamic Control Allocation

We are very excited to enable the new dynamic control allocation by default; it allows users to define vehicle configurations at runtime without needing a mixer file, thanks to the new vehicle setup dashboard in QGroundControl.

Improved Preflight Failure Check Reporting (QGC Arming Checks UI)

PX4 v1.14 adds much improved preflight failure reporting through the events interface. If the vehicle won't arm, you can more easily find out why in the QGC Arming Checks UI (opens new window). No more wondering if it's a problem with the safety switch, a poor calibration, or something in the internals of the estimator!

As part of this change, it is now possible to switch to any mode when disarmed (previously you could not switch to a mode that required GPS if you didn't have a good position estimate). PX4 will only allow you to arm when the conditions for the current mode are met, and will report failure checks that are not relevant to the current mode as warnings.

Failsafe Simplification

Safety Failsafe handling has been simplified, in particular with respect to what happens if a failsafe is triggered when another failsafe is already in progress.

There is now a hold delay before the action is performed, giving the user time to override the failsafe if needed. If multiple failsafes are triggered, the more severe action is taken. For example if both RC and GPS are lost, and manual control loss is set to Return mode and GCS link loss to Land, Land is executed. The new Failsafe State Machine Simulation allows you to test failsafe behaviour under all possible configurations and conditions.

New Gazebo

Given the recent changes (opens new window) by the Open Robotics simulation team, we are introducing name changes for our gazebo simulations, mirroring Open Robotics naming scheme, starting with v1.14:

Ignition Gazebo (opens new window) to Gazebo Gazebo (opens new window) to Gazebo Classic. Most importantly this affects the PX4 build target names as well:

Gazebo targets are prefixed with gz_ (e.g. make px4_sitl gz_x500). Gazebo Classic make targets are now prefixed with gazebo-classic_ (e.g., make px4_sitl gazebo-classic_cloudship).

Improved ROS 2 Interface via uXRCE-DDS

We updated the ROS 2 interface, replacing Fast-RTPS (opens new window) with uXRCE-DDS, resulting in an improved experience across the board. The change also avoids the need for _rtps build targets, enabling the interface on even more targets by default.

Full changelog available here