Hi all,
I have an Arduino Uno board available and want to know whether I can use this as part of a full AP and FPV setup for an aircraft? I see lots of information on the mega board on this site, but cannot figure out whether I can get the same sort of setup using the Uno board.
What other hardware will I need to complete the setup - a GPS and IMU shield?
I also need FPV capability on the drone and an OSD that can use the Arduino based Autopilot as input would be ideal. Can this be done?
I just need pointers such as "yes, but you need a,b,c hardware extra and c,d,e software" or "no, can't be done".
Replies
Hi,
I have an APM1, Arduino Mega and 2 Uno's. Mostly used the Uno's for learning Arduino stuff that I wouldn't want to try out on my APM. IMHO, the main limitation of the Uno is that it has only a single serial port. For example, GPS and telemetry each normally consume a serial port. There is this thing called software serial but I never got either one working with GPS or Xbee telemetry with the Uno. Maybe I didn't try hard enough or maybe also the reason is the optimized interrupt driven Serial library that APM uses.
So in short: if you want to go the hard way, sure it is possible. As you say, you'll at least need an IMU and GPS. If you want to do antenna tracking for FPV then some kind telemetry will be useful. If you want to go the (comparably) easy way, buy an APM (either APM1 with separate IMU board or APM2 or 2.5 with integrated) and use the Uno for something else. I'm actually just using one to test my antenna tracker. First, I record GPS coordinates to EEPROM, then I connect the xbee and simulate position updates.
Cheers, have fun,
Andre