Comment by Caleb M on September 29, 2009 at 2:26pm

When i was looking into ppz i figured a seperate gps would be best. and with ardupilot i think its very nice. I will give a few reason of why i feel that way.
1. When separated it is easier to replace the unit or the ardupilot when one or the other is faulty.
2. When an upgrade comes along, and the future of upgrades is not foreseeable, it is less costly
3. A larger board will mean a larger cavity in the aircraft, meaning less structural strength, from a designers perspective.
4. The ardupilot board can be more protected and the gps antenna can be located closer to the surface. for small aircraft this may not seem like a big deal. but for larger aircraft it is very nice.

just some of my own thoughts.

Things are very exciting, i hope you have better luck in the air. seems like a rough few weeks.

3D Robotics Comment by Chris Anderson on September 29, 2009 at 2:38pm

Caleb,

Many thanks for the input. Jordi and I are still debating this issue. Just one point of clarification: We're talking about the turn-rater limiter (PicoPilot-style) shield for the current ArduPilot, not ArduPilot Mega (which will definitely have a separate GPS module). Since it's a shield and the size is fixed the board will be the same size whether it has a GPS onboard or not.

GPS onboard pros and cons:

Pros:
--Simpler and smaller: less wiring and easier installation
--One fewer potential point of failure
--Easier for newcomers, which is who this autopilot is aimed at
--More robust in the case of a crash (I've ripped the GPS port off a few autopilot boards when the module went flying out of the plane)

Cons:
--Smaller ceramic antenna
--Stuck with the GPS module we provide (although the shield won't cost much more than the GPS module itself, so the upgrade cost is not much different)
--Inflexible antenna placement, so not good for carbon fiber aircraft (but who has one of those??)

All in all, I lean toward an integrated package but could be talked out of it if something can prove to me that the small ceramic antenna version of the uBlox5 module is much worse than the regular size.

Comment by Mike Downey on September 29, 2009 at 6:52pm

I am quite interested in the IMU emulation of the FMA thermopile that you mentioned during the poscast. if this was turned into a commercial product I think this would be quite popular.

Comment