I was wondering if anyone in the DIY community has ever put a Aurdopilot on a gas powered airplane. If so did it work and does the engine effect the autopilot. I am about to put it in an airplane with a 3 meter wing span and I don't want it to crash so Im trying to see how it will react inside this airplane.
Thank you for your help.
Michael
Replies
Mike, a few years ago I installed a flight stabilization in my gas powered helicopter. I had nothing but problems. It turned out not to be the engine but the tail. The tail used a belt so this was basically a Van de Graaff generator. It would start glitching in the servos once I started to hover. I have not tried it with APM yet.
However, in your case I would do some research on RC Groups. There is a lot of information regarding RF interference and ignition engines. My two cents are:
Keep things apart, distance is your friend. I don't think you will have much of an issue. If APM can work with all the EMI created by multicopters you should be just fine. Good luck and let us know how the build is going.
Thank you all are things I have not yet thought about. The biggest thing I am worried about is engine vibration. I don't want the vibration from the engine to mess up any of my IMU sensors.
Mike
Michael, we run here single, boxer, 4 cylinder gasoline engines on many different types of airframes and usually no problems with vibrations. Single cylinder naturally creates most of the vibration compared to others. Also we are not using any really fancy anti-vibration mounts. Mostly APM sits on heavier aluminum sheet that is mounted with 4 rubber balls to main frame and that's about it.
Like Rob said, EMI is your main concern so keep noisy electronics separated from flightcontrollers and use multiple batteries.
I'm building my first one, with 30cc 2t engine, 2400mm wingspan, 9kg MTOW, to fly with APM 2.5.
First of all, before to build it, I read a lot at http://www.canberrauav.com/
I you want, we can keep in contact to exchanges our experiences.
Good luck!
i'd be more worried about fuel level, i mean the apm can easily see the voltage of yer packs, but can it detect how much fuel you have left?
Clock is your best friend for those.. All airplane, helicopter pilots are using timers to measure flight times. Sure we can also make small flow sensor that measures how much we have been "eating" our gasoline but for now timer is best, cheapest and easiest way to handle gasoline issues.
Nice thank you for the website! I will look for lessons learned so I can avoid them. And sure I would like to keep in touch to see how we are both doing.
I am looking for information to see if the engine puts off any noise that would effect the autopilot and cause it to go haywire. I have sunk a lot of money and if this crashes I think I am done. So again thank you for your information.
Mike