Release 23.08

Compatibility:

This release maintain both radio and config compatibility with previous version. So you can use previous version of wfb-ng on the other link side and import most of your customizations from /etc/wifibroadcast.cfg

But there are two incompatibilities in the config:

1. common.link_id was moved to profile section and renamed to link_domain.
2. In previous releases (23.01 and earlier) there were a bug with tunnel streams numbers: drone->gs (down) 0xa0 and gs->drone (up) 0x20 - i.e. they were swapped. Now it is fixed according to standard document. Now tunnels streams are drone->gs (down) 0x20 and gs->drone(up) 0xa0. If you need to maintain compatibility with old versions you can swap these number on any side of link.

Changes:

• Mavlink parser speedup. Instead of using standard full-featured (and slow mavlink parser) now use fast packet splitter.

• Added callbacks for vehicle arm/disarm. You can use it for camera recording activation.

• Added mavlink tcp proxy. Now it is possible to use backup link via LTE modem or connect onboard computer without external mavlink-router. To connect as backup link in QGC use tcp connection to port 5760 and check "high latency link" checkbox.

• Self-injected frames are ignored now in case when TX and RX use the same radio port.

• Added cross-build support via qemu + docker.

• Improved udp socket buffer overflow handling:

  1. Added option for socket buffer size for incoming messages on the tx side.
  2. Check for socket buffer overflow and show warnings.

  You can set socket buffer size system-wide via net.core.rmem_default or via -R option in wfb_tx.

• Warn if incoming packet > MAX_PAYLOAD_SIZE and will be truncated.

• Added support for RTS frames. Now you can choose between data and rts frames when transmit packages.

• Added default route option for IP tunnel.

• Large refactoring of WFB-ng control-plane:

  1. Added support for multiple profiles and profile inheritance (no need to have multiple copies of wifibroadcast.cfg).
  2. No hadcoded streams (video/mavlink/tunnel) anymore. You can define own profiles and any number of data streams can be added/removed to profiles without any code change.
  3. Multiple profiles can be active simultaneously (no need to run multiple instances of wfb-server when using the same wifi adapters for different links). For example: systemctl enable wifbroadcast@gs1:gs2:gs3:gs4
  4. Added support for raw udp data streams. They don't use any frame aggregation or mavlink injection.
  5. TX antenna selection is now link_domain wide - for example one-way udp_proxy TX will use active antenna selected by other RX streams.

• Added support for multiple directed antennas on both ends and different frequency channels on different cards:

  1. common.wifi_channel can now be not only int, but also dict. In this case, you can specify different frequency channels for different cards. For example: {'wlan0': 161, 'wlan1': 165}
  2. Tunnel keepalive package is now transmitted through all cards, not just through the active
  3. Added mirror mode. Use it only if you use different frequency channels for multiple cards. In this mode each packet will be send via all cards (by default only active cards send packets). This allow to add redundancy for multi-frequency link

  These allow you to use multiple frequency channels at the same time if you have multiple cards on each end. For example, you can use 2.4 + 5.8 GHz.
  Or you can use multiple directional antennas on both sides of the link, as point (2) solves the chicken and egg problem of allowing directional antennas
  (and/or different frequency channels) to agree on the direction (and/or frequency) of transmission

  In the case of different frequency channels, the solution is not quite ideal, because only RSSI is used to select the active channel, and the number of errors is ignored. Use mirror mode in this case.

Raspberry PI 3B ready to use image:

Changes:

• Large refactoring of OSD widgets. See wfb-ng-osd release notes.

Image notes:

• This image was tested on RPI3b + Alfa AWUS036ACH + PI Camera. Use native ("thick") USB3 cable from this card. If you have issues with different HW setup then try to test this setup first before issuing bug report.
• OSD will not work on RPI4 due to dropped OpenVG support.
• If you use high-power cards like "taobao card" then you must use external high-current power supply and low-esr capacitor on the card. Don't power them from USB!

Telegram group: (wfb-ng support) https://t.me/wfb_ng

Please note, that it is only one official group.