Awash in GPS autopilots

WALKERA-G400-ARTF_02.jpg
Clicking through some ads reveals there's now a flood of banging good GPS autopilots out there, being marketed towards RC pilots.  They're a lot more stable than anything I could afford, owing to the latest GPS module, barometers, & the arducopter source code, which they all undoubtedly copy.


http://www.banggood.com/Walkera-G400-GPS-Serles-6CH-RC-Helicopter-With-DEVO-7-p-89151.html


Gone are the days when someone would tear them open & study the part numbers.  The new customers are RC pilots with no idea what's inside. It wouldn't be surprising to find uBlox-7 & MS5611 in all of them.


BLH7880_b0.jpg

http://helipartsdirect.com/blade-350-qx-bnf-quadcopter-with-safe-technology-model-blh7880.html


Even the mighty Horizon Hobby finally caved in & started selling a GPS autopilot, though marketing it exclusively as a return to home feature.


The trick with autopilots is once you have one, now what?  They're good at making timelapse movies.  They can fly to places that were impossible for a human to reach manually, but the newest FPV systems make those places accessible for a human.

They're supposed to be good at returning to home when contact is lost, but there's very little evidence of that being used.  It's still a lot of trouble to wait for GPS to lock on, make sure everything is calibrated correctly, just for that 1 feature. 

There was some energy behind the following camera concept, but they probably weren't accurate enough to do a good job.  Now there's hope for massive agricultural demand. 

Autopilot for an RC pilot can get pretty boring, once the novelty of seeing it hover wears off.  Hobbyists who design robot algorithms still seem to be the mane customers.
It was suprising that the mane media avenues: tested, flite test, rcmodelreviews were completely devoid of the GPS autopilot boom, emphasizing indoor quads instead.  Even the mighty black sheep became famous not because of an autopilot but manual control.




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Comments

  • Developer

    Robert, I am not saying the autopilot is completely useless. But the longer you fly (tradition R/C), the less important it becomes. Outside the UAS/Aerial photo side of thing, flying a quad for example is perhaps the most boring thing I can imagine when it comes to R/C, and mode will be more or less permanently stuck in manual/acro mode. My most memorable moments leaving a stupid grin stuck on my face for hours, have always been 99% manual doing something 'reckless' with a cheap self-made airplane in extreme weather or a strange location (not around people). Crashes 100% guaranteed.. :)

    I guess it's a challenge and reward thing. The thing that draw many to the helicopters (specifically 3d heli's) is the steep learning curve, and the insane amount of practice you have to put into it to fly anything resembling good 3D. I don't even come close to having the having the stamina and will to do that. But for those that do, it means that there is always something new to learn. It is also probably why many experienced airplane flyers transition over to 3D helicopters.

  • For pure heli fun and easy to mount and configure (without PC) I can recommend BeastX (for FBL) from my own experience (I think other companies have good solutions there at play as well). Depending on parameters (of course) it makes your heli very stable, easy to handle and save you a lot of trouble and it's a slightly bigger tail gyro replacement, though it will not give you GPS or althold - but flightfun - so it hasn't the drone approach on that subject.

  • I disagree John.  I never would have become as good of a heli pilot as I am now without Arducopter.  Club instructor on a buddy box or not.  Helicopters are just WAY too difficult to fly.  Arducopter has been a massive accelerator.  Heck, it's true for me even though I crashed a lot while developing the software.  With the same number of flights I have in, I doubt I'd be flying as well if I'd just gone the old fashioned way.

    If you know me, you know I'm a pilot.  I like to fly.  But I actually find flying helis in Stab more enjoyable than manually.  Probably because I'm really an airplane guy, not a 3D heli pilot.  I'm only interested in helis because of VTOL capability, but I like fast forward flight.  And I just find it's more fun with the edge taken off. 

  • Developer

    I agree that autopilots used in traditional R/C is pretty pointless. They might be able to replace the dual radio & trainer cable in the beginning as a training tool, but R/C is all about feeling in control and mastering the craft. Crashing is just as much a part of the hobby as building and flying. Autopilots pretty much makes the flying part pointless, and makes it so that you learn very little when it does crash (and it will).

    The new breed of UAS/FPV/AP 'pilots' on the other hand, aren't really interested in piloting. For them the aircraft is just a needs to an end, where the primary goal is the data collected (photo/video). For them, autopilots makes a lot more sense.

    And with regards to copying/reusing APM code. This can in many ways be considered "mission accomplished". Those having followed APM and DIYd from the beginning, know that the underlying goal has always been to make autopilot technology accessible. And I like to think the APM dev groups is a bit more mature then the stereotypical open source community. As such we don't have problems with others reusing our code.

    The only problem is when they start breaking the GPL in doing so.

  • "...& the arducopter source code, which they all undoubtedly copy...." I wouldn't be too sure of that.

  • @ Tim Green +1 I also a retired engineer with similar experience. Trouble with business it's all about winning. Not winning for America, but ruthlessly winning for that particular business over all the others for them and their stock holders. At this point a nearly perfect example of why that philosophy doesn't work in the long run.

    @Jack Reality is we don't really need to open them up and look at them, we already have all that info open source and on display (here among other places).

    Short of getting ahold of Boeing or Northrup military drones and cracking them open (really unlikely) what we want to know is already on the Internet.

    And we are a truly International "Open" community sharing - "Openly" pretty much whatever we know.

    Exactly the opposite of the traditional economy and political environment we live in the rest of the time.

    Perhaps that is where the future is, we just need to figure out how to make it so.

    There are still plenty of bright minds in the US and a lot of them are still trying to make a difference doing their own thing - against all odds.

    Robotics of all sorts is the coming revolution (not just drones which are problematic at the best of times).

    But the robotics revolution is going to be even more interesting and provide even more opportunity then the PC revolution ever did.

    And in that revolution - seeing is all important, but you know that don't you Jack.

    Best Regards,

    Gary

  • flitetest have used ardupilot :)

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