Hey guys, as many of you know the AeroQuad has teamed up with DIY Drones on developing a very full featured multicopter! Chris from DIY Drones has proposed the name of this new effort to be called the ArduCopter! It will be based on the ArduPilot Pro Mega (APM) and the APM sensor board currently nicknamed the Oil Pan. Here's an initial feature list and software road map. Please chime in! Your input is valuable! I'll keep updating this front page until we agree on the first version of the ArduCopter's capabilities.
ArduCopter Feature ListSoftware Roadmap
- 6 Degree of Freedom IMU stabilized control
- Gyro stabilized flight mode enabling acrobatics (loops and barrel rolls)
- GPS for position hold
- Magnetometer for heading determination
- Barometer for altitude hold
- IR sensor integration for obstacle avoidance
- Sonar sensor for automated takeoff and landing capability
- Automated waypoint navigation
- Motor control using low cost standard PWM Electronics Speed Controllers (ESC's)
- On board flight telemetery data storage
- Mounted camera stabilization capability
- Wireless command & telemetry for long distance communication
- Capability to fly in "+", "x", hexa and octo configurations
- Battery level detection
- User configurable LED flight pattern
- Capability to use any R/C receiver
- ArduCopter Configuration and Ground Control Software
- Realtime graphs of flight data
- GUI for configuration of PID and other flight parameters
- On Screen Display integration
- Waypoint programming using Google Maps
- Mixertable view to auto configure "+", "x", hexa and octo configurations
- Initial baseline using Jose Julio's v3 software
- Provides absolute angle PID flight control
- Obstacle avoidance
- Waypoint navigation
- Generalize basic ArduCopter functions (ie. Separate PPM receiver input and motor control functions into separate libraries. Allows future coding of PWM vs. I2C ESC's)
- Emphasis on developing new capability into easy to use C++ libraries
- Integrate user defined EEPROM storage capability
- Develop/optimize AeroQuad serial real-time command/telemetry for ArduCopter
- Integrate AeroQuad Configurator for external software configuration of ArduCopter
- Rename Configurator to Ground Control Station and integrate graphical programming of waypoint navigation
- Integrate AeroQuad rate PID control
- Integrate mixertable configuration for multicopter configurations
- Integrate AeroQuad camera stabilization
- Integrate I2C motor control
- Develop capability to wirelessly control ArduCopter directly from Ground Control Station (USB joystick controller from laptop or through waypoint programming)
Announcing ArduCopter, the merger of the ArduPilot and AeroQuad projects!
I'm pleased to announce that we've joined forces with the other Arduino-based powerhouse in the aerial robotics world, the AeroQuad quadcopter team, to extend the ArduPilot platform to whirlybirds of all kinds. The project, called ArduCopter, will use the ArduPilotMega and IMU shield hardware along with a low-cost custom platform that will be available commercially to provide a full quad UAV with both stabilization and GPS waypoint navigation. It builds on the awesome work of Jose Julio in ArduPilot quad development, with the excellent full-systems integration of the AeroQuad team. We expect that first code and hardware will be available this summer.
And here's the impressive work of the AeroQuad team:
Another team is also extending this to traditional helis, starting with the Trex 450 heli (and its equivalents), which should be ready for release this fall. Along with Blimpduino, this should make for 100% coverage of all aerial robotics platforms on the Arduino platform, with shared libraries and ground stations across projects. Go Arduino!
We'll be setting up a proper microsite here, along with dedicated tab, for the project in the next few days.
If you haven't already seen this preview of what the ArduPilot/ArduIMU combo can do with quads, check this out:
And here's the impressive work of the AeroQuad team:
Here's the announcement from the AeroQuad team:
ArduCopter - The Full Featured UAV Multicopter!
Comments are closed for this blog post
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Comment by Neil Baker on October 3, 2010 at 1:50pm -
I have been tring to get my roll and pitch gyros to work in the configurator. Followed the setup correctly including initializing the eprom. Everything else works fine. Re-downloaded the alpha software and started fresh but still no success. Fired the quad up in stabilize and acro and they definatelly arent working. Must be something small that I am missing. Anybody have any ideas? I attached the serial stream below with me moving the quad all around. Cant remember where in the line the gyros are though.
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Comment by Arthur P. Meiners on October 3, 2010 at 1:55pm -
Not sure why we call it "calibrating the ESCs". What we are actually doing is configuring or setting them up properly for use with the multikopter and that includes defining minimum and maximum throttle value, but can also include such things as correctly setting the digital switches for low battery cut-off value and type, battery type, braking, etc. Wonder wheterh it would be a good idea to develop a small Arduino Mini Pro (or similar) application for setting up and testing the most popular ESCs (and testing motor/prop combinations). That might be more flexible than trying to do it all through the Configurator and APM. Since I have a couple of arduino pros lying around I-ve certainly been using that approach for testing I2C converted ESCs on a simple thrust testbench instead of mounting everything on a multikopter and then testing with the potential risk of something unexpected happening and causing damage.
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Comment by Arthur P. Meiners on October 3, 2010 at 2:01pm
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Just another thought: This blog format isn't too convenient to group information in. As ArduCopter and AeroQuad are closely linked, would it not make sense to set up one or two separate areas with the AaroQuad forum where threads specific for the ArduCopter could be grouped ?
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3D Robotics Comment by Chris Anderson on October 3, 2010 at 2:11pm -
Arthur, the problems is that everyone is just using this blog as a catch-all for ArduCopter discussion, rather than starting threads in the discussion forums as they should. The ArduCopter forums are here. I'm going to close comments in this thread to keep it from metastatisizing further ;-)
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3D Robotics Comment by Chris Anderson on October 3, 2010 at 2:12pm -
Masterbaker: you may have a bad board (roll and pitch are the same gyro chip and it may have a loose connection). I'd return it to be checked out and reflowed if necessary.
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3D Robotics Comment by Chris Anderson on October 3, 2010 at 2:14pm -
COMMENTS ARE NOW CLOSED ON THIS POST
132 pages of comments are enough ;-) For further discussion of ArduCopter please start or respond to threads in the discussion forums.
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