Altos1.2.1

Tue, 21 May 2013 17:47:09 -0700
tags/rockets

AltOS 1.2.1 — TeleBT support, bug fixes and new AltosUI features

Bdale and I are pleased to announce the release of AltOS version 1.2.1.

AltOS is the core of the software for all of the Altus Metrum products. It consists of cc1111-based micro-controller firmware and Java-based ground station software.

The biggest new feature for AltOS is the addition of support for TeleBT, our ground station designed to operate with Android phones and tablets. In addition, there's a change in the TeleDongle radio configuration that should improve range, some other minor bug fixes and new features in AltosUI

AltOS Firmware — Features and fixes

There are bug fixes in both ground station and flight software, so you should plan on re-flashing both units at some point. However, there aren't any incompatible changes, so you don't have to do it all at once.

New features:

TeleBT support.

Improved radio sensitivity. The TeleDongle receiver parameters have been tweaked to provide better reception.

TeleMini now completely resets all radio parameters in recovery mode (with the two outer debug pins connected) -- 434.550MHz, N0CALL, factory radio cal.

Bug fixes:

USB device fixes. This improves operation with Windows, avoiding hangs and errors in many cases.

Correct the Kalman filter error covariance matrix; the old parameters were built assuming continuous measurements.

AltosUI — Easier to use

AltosUI has also seen quite a bit of work for the 1.2.1 release. It's got several fun new features and a few bug fixes.

New Graph UI features:

Show tool-tips with the value near the cursor.

Make the set of displayed values configurable. Add all of the available data values just in case you want to see them.

Added a Map tab showing the ground track of the whole flight.

The flight summary tab now includes the final GPS position. This lets you figure out where your rocket landed without replaying the whole flight.

Other new AltosUI features:

TeleBT support, including Bluetooth connections (Linux-only, at present).

Shows the callsign in the Monitor Idle and other command-mode windows so that you can tell what callsign is being used.

Show the block number when downloading flight data. This lets you see something happen even for longer flights.

Make the initial position of the AltosUI configurable so that you can position it out of the way of the rest of you desktop.

Distribute Mac OS X in .dmg format (Mac OS Disk Image); this means you don't need to explicitly unpack the bits.

Bug fixes:

Deal with broken networking while downloading map tiles. Tiles are now always downloaded asynchronously so that the UI doesn't freeze when the network is slow.