ArduPilotMega 1.0 launched! (bye-bye beta)
After nearly six months of development from first public alpha, hundreds of hours of flight testings and countless bug fixes, I'm delighted to announce that ArduPilot Mega 1.0 is now out of beta. This code is solid, should run pretty much out of the box and has been tested on more than 30 different airframes, to say nothing of countless flight simulator hours. This is almost certainly the most complex Arduino program ever written, and takes the Arduino hardware further than anyone thought was possible.
Between the APM code and the Libraries, there have been more than 3,000 commits to the SVN repository, which is just one indication of the amazing amount of work that's gone into this. Huge thanks to the team leaders: Doug Weibel, Jason Short, Michael Smith, Michael Oborne, James Goppert, Benjamin Pelletier, and Paul Mather, with special library assistance from Jani Hirvinen, Jose Julio and Randy Mackay.
To get started with APM 1.0, we highly recommend using the hardware-in-the-loop simulator using the Mission Planner and the excellent Xplane Flight Simulator. Hugely fun to program missions and watch the planes perform them perfectly, hands off.
- Flight modes: Manual, Stabilize, Fly By Wire, Auto, RTL
- Mission Scripting commands: Navigate to Waypoint, Loiter X turns, Loiter X seconds, Loiter (indefinitely, good for ending mission), RTL, Land, Takeoff, Landing Options, Delay, Reset index, Go to index, Change throttle, Change airspeed, Reset home, Change PID gain, Set relay, Set servo
- Hardware support for airspeed sensor, Xbee telemetry (one-way), battery monitoring
- The awesome Mission Planner utility
- The equally awesome HappyKillmore Ground Station
- Mission Scripting commands: Climb (rate based), Get Variable, Send Variable, Telemetry, Change radio trims, Change radio mins/maxes.
- Hardware support for magnetometer
- Two-way telemetry and in-flight gain and command sending
- Support for the MavLink com/telemetry protocol.
The work to bring APM to maturity will also pay dividends for the rest of the Ardu* family of autopilots and UAV systems, which share the same libraries. This includes:
- ArduCopter (quad) will be moving to 1.0 (codename NG) later this week, and a 1.5 version (codename ArduCopter Mega) that syncs up with the rest of the APM family, including the Mission Planner and Ground Stations, will be out in beta in a about a month.
- ArduCopter (heli) is already out in beta and flying. If you've got a Trex 450-style heli, please give it a try and let us know how it's working for you.
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Distributor Comment by Martint BuildYourOwnDrone.co.uk on December 13, 2010 at 1:24am -
Hi Chris, Great to see the new code is ready to go! If the weather holds I will use it a little later on today, it is amazing how far you all have brought this project, I was only reading this post: http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/705844:BlogPost:16007 a few days back. Thank you all for you hard work! Regards
Martin
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Comment by Sverre Faureholm on December 13, 2010 at 2:24am -
Great news.
Does anyone know of a way to connect an OSD board to the APM?
The way I see it, this system could outperform any of the existing OSD systems on the market, because the APM is very integrated with almost everything on-board:GPS, Barometer, airspeed, IMU (for showing artificial horizon), voltage + current sensors would be quite easy to implement.
RegardsSverre
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Comment by Colin on December 13, 2010 at 3:18am -
Chris,
In version 1.1 you say "Two-way telemetry and in-flight gain and command sending" will be coming. What protocol will this be using? GCS_PROTOCOL_LEGACY?
Thanks,
Colin
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Comment by Jonas on December 13, 2010 at 5:05am -
congratulations and celebrations to all who made it happen!
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Comment by Paul Marsh on December 13, 2010 at 5:31am -
Congratulations to the team! Well done.
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Comment by Rana on December 13, 2010 at 5:39am -
Big big conratulations to the development team: Doug Weibel, Jason Short, Michael Smith, Michael Oborne, James Goppert, Benjamin Pelletier, and Paul Mather.
I would like to specially thank Jordi, for his incredible contribution in the project and for the PCB design !
Best Regards
Rana
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Comment by ruudh on December 13, 2010 at 5:48am -
Excellent job!
Is there also an address in Europe for buying APM mainboard, IMU shield, pins, connectors, etc?
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Comment by Chris Walsh on December 13, 2010 at 5:56am -
like
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Distributor Comment by Martint BuildYourOwnDrone.co.uk on December 13, 2010 at 6:14am
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Comment by Rana on December 13, 2010 at 6:40am
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ArdupilotMegaPlanner_0.4.12 crashing in XP, service pack 3
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