Introducing Auterion 1.2

December 18, 2019

Vehicle pairing

Announcing two new releases: Auterion Enterprise PX4 v1.2. and Auterion Ground Station v1.6.

Six months after we launched our v1.1. release, we are excited to announce Auterion Enterprise PX4 v1.2. together with the latest version of our ground station application. In these two releases, we combined our customers’ feedback with our focus on increasing flight safety, autonomous mission capabilities, an expanded compatible camera lineup, and improved features for pilots and operators.

Enhanced flight control and new flight safety features

  • With this new release, we added a new position mode for a Region of Interest (ROI), that allows pilots to automatically survey and inspect a preset point of interest.
  • Operators can now add rally points for any flight or mission. In case of a safety-critical event, the aircraft will proceed to the nearest preset landing point. This is particularly important when determining safe landing zones for BVLOS applications.
  • We dedicated particular care in improving the UX and the robustness against external disturbances, like wind, incorrect mission planning, and sensor failures for VTOL flights (during transitions and when flying through waypoints).

New perception sensors and autonomous features for flight safety

  • v1.2. combines sensor fusion with Visual Inertial Odometry (VIO) to enable safe and precise autonomous navigation in areas with poor to no GPS signals such as near buildings, below bridges, or even indoors. See the new functionality in action here.

  • Several improvements in our collision prevention (can be enabled on supported hardware) enables increased safety when operating in obstacle rich environments such as urban or wooded areas, or around industrial infrastructures. In Collision Prevention mode drones stop at a given distance from obstacles.

  • Improved algorithms for better flight tracking during Obstacle Avoidance flight mode. This update smoothes the trajectory around obstacles in autonomous missions (with supported hardware).

  • For the above features, we included support for the latest 3D sensors (tested on Structure Core and Intel® RealSense™).

Great camera lineup, camera control, and photo gallery in AGS

  • With this release, we grew the lineup of supported cameras to include the Nextvision Camera API (tested on Colibri 2), Sony business camera line API (tested on QX30), FLIR Boson, and Auterion Situational Awareness Camera. All integrations include camera parameters and gimbal control from the Auterion Ground Station (AGS).
  • We added support for a secondary video stream (e.g. you can simultaneously see visual and thermal video signals in the ground station) and we improved the video streaming capabilities (including over LTE) from the compatible cameras  to the Ground Station.
  • The Auterion Ground Station now includes a photo gallery that allows operators to review the recorded images from the flight in real-time. All captured images are downloaded in full-resolution, stored locally, and include all meta information and geotagging (EXIF).

Capable Ground Control with integrated compliance and new powerful SDK features

  • With a simple press of a button, the Auterion Ground Station can now easily be paired with various supported drones.This allows operators to easily connect to multiple drones that fly with Auterion Enterprise PX4 using the same ground controller.
  • The Auterion Ground Station is now connected to Auterion Cloud Insights to allow automatic pilot log in. Pilot in Command, flight status, and mission data are synced to the Cloud, displayed on a dashboard, and easily exportable to .PDF or .CVS files for compliance reporting.
  • Additionally, pre-flight checklists are now an integral part of the flight planning and are synced to the Auterion Cloud Insights for compliance reporting. This includes no-fly zones.
  • We added a feature to support vehicles equipped with multiple batteries. When the drone has a second battery the ground station will display the status of both batteries. In the case of multi battery support, the icon on the toolbar will reflect the status of the battery with the lowest percentage.
  • Finally, we expanded the functionality of the mobile SDK in Python and added Java Support. More details here.

The above list covers just a few highlights of what’s new in Auterion 1.2. Want to learn more? Take a look at our Products on our website or reach out here if you have questions.