20201124 Dev Meeting

Agenda

General:

• Update from relevant previous calls
• Tagged: issues, PR.

Notes

• travis-ci.org shuts down 31 December. ArduPilot is transferring some of our relevant CI to github actions, as we haven't got confirmation from travis regarding FOSS credits. We've included Mavlink in our analysis of the problem scope, and will pr a github action upstream to mavlink/mavlink for consideration
• Added mission checksum message #1172 and common: add new_mission extension to MISSION_COUNT message #1527
  • Use checksum but iterated to use a hash and to have separate hash for each plan type
  • Close common: add new_mission extension to MISSION_COUNT message #1527
  • DONE AO Hamish to communicate this.
• Note from Hamish that we're discussing "somewhat trivial" issues in devcall - should we have more discussion in github
  • Lorenz held view that we have more rigorous requirements now. This may need to be better publicized, but it is appropriate we approve these in meeting, particularly while we are iterating governance.
• MAVlink Governance Policy - Lorenz and JamesP to go through open points offline and update collaboratively (Meeting planned for 6.15pm AEST, 26 Nov)
• MAV_CMD_REQUEST_MESSAGE back into common.xml?
  • Present as is dependency for documented MAVLink version handshake
  • JamesP pointed out that this handshake not used by ArduPilot - reflects "a documented approach" not "the standard".
  • AO JamesP to find out how ArduPilot does handshake (for docs)
  • AO HamishW to update docs to point out that the approach is more "tutorial" than "the way"
    • Hamish: Waiting on info from James so I only have to look at the doc update once
  • DONE AO HamishW to move MAV_CMD_REQUEST_MESSAGE back into common.xml
• Change EFI_STATUS flow units from g to cm^3 #1526
  • Not used by PX4. James still confirming it won't impact existing known users.
  • Some discussion of alternatives. Lorenz confirmed OK with this to be merged following James evaluation.
• WIP usage - report from Julian and James
  • Julian not present, but has submitted PR for number of cases
  • General agreement that we work on cleaning these up then remove the concept once we have "Experimental xml"
  • AO Hamish to clean up https://github.com/mavlink/mavlink/pull/1513 and merge.
• common: Add 'Inclusion Group' to fence for 'OR' fences #1510 - Lorenz - technical opinion required from PX4.
  • Lorenz also sees this as reasonable/sensible.
  • Doesn't see it as necessarily hard for UI. Will discuss any concerns Don might have and then push the PR in if these can be allayed.
• generator: mavlink_channel_t with correct length #473 - James - re-ping Tridge for re-review
  • DONE and merged.
• Move MAV_CMD_DO_AUTOTUNE_ENABLE to common #1525 - Non urgent AO on James to find out how end of autotune is detected by ArduPilot (for docs)
• add pseudo oblique function to 206 CAM_TRIGG_DIST - 1508 - Merged on basis is going to be accepted into flight stack. Confirm
  • Confirmed that this is intended to go into PX4 and ArduPilot (essentially Igor is driving this forward in exactly the right way)
• Need to use mavlink email group to engage and notify people of breaking changes.

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Not discussed

• Proposal for extending COMMAND_LONG to allow for arbitrary param types #1523 - Julian not present so could not discuss.
• NAV_CONTROLLER_OUTPUT: add airspeed setpoint field - Silvan did not attend. Parked.
  • If we add this setpoint, do we also need altitude setpoint
  • Would we be better with a separate message, and if so, what would be in it.
  • FYI only we need to be more consistent in how we refer to setpoint field names. The same concept is referred to as desired, setpoint, target, and other variations. Generally target is probably recommended as "most neutral".
  • What is the intent for this - ie how will it be used.
• common: add MAV_CMD to process custom actions on a waypoint #1516
• File-based protocols for params, missions, etc - Next steps Lorenz?
• Specific case - COMMAND_ACK extension fields WIP: https://mavlink.io/en/messages/common.html#COMMAND_ACK

Attendees: HamishW, JamesP, Michael Oborne, Philip Rowse, kunle Kunle, Ji . Apologies from Julian.