I am not a programmer (wish I was, but probably too old to start now). I am trying to understand what all is happening in the industry as far as how it relates to the end user. I would love to learn to fly one of the multicopters and it seems as if that is a large part of all the work being done behind the scenes to make these easier to fly, giving them more capability, etc. So, I fully support all efforts and wish I could be of some assistance...but, I am stumbling at a very basic level: Can someone please briefly explain the difference between Arducopter 3.0.1; APM:Copter; APM:AC rc5. All seem to me to be perhaps synonymous, but if not, what is the difference? Are these not all referencing the firmware that allows the multicopters to fly (in other words, the brain that runs the flight controller)?
TIA
Replies
Hi Rob,
I'll take a shot at it.
The original Name of the platform / firmware that DIYDrones was developing was ArduPilot and it was developed in 3 flavors ArduPlane, ArduCopter and ArduRover.
And our original hardware platform was called the APM (Ardu Pilot Mega).
Recently with a de-emphasis on the Arduino based original APM hardware with the introduction of the non-Arduino PX4 / Pixhawk platforms it was felt inappropriate to continue with the Arduino reference so we switched all the prefix's from Ardu to APM, but APM was re-interpreted to mean Auto Pilot Multiplatform.
So ArduCopter is now APM:Copter and so on, there are still lots of legacy and other confusing references to Ardu stuff, but it should all really be APM:xxxx now.
As for the numbers you reference, yes those do reference the particular firmware package for the particular platform APM:Copter, APM:Plane and APM:Rover.
Our group of developers is continuously updating code and our testers are continuously testing and reporting back on it so there is a continuous stream of released to end users code, beta code for testers and truly work in progress developer only code, each with its own number indicating it's position in the sequence.
Arducopter 3.01 = APM:Copter 3.01 current release to user code.
APM:AC rc5 actually = APM:Copter 3.1 rc5 which means Beta tester code release candidate version 5 (almost ready to be turned into regular use code).
As an end user, and one interested in using non-beta firmware, none of this matters, when you go into the Mission Planner program to download the firmware on to your APM or PX4 or Pixhawk, you just select to download it and it will automatically download the most recent version of the actual user release firmware to your board.
You have to select "beta" to get the beta (testers only) code and a special control sequence to get the developer only pretty much guaranteed not to work properly code.
Because we transitioned recently there are still lots of Ardu references, just substitute APM: and you will be fine.
Over time this particular confusion will diminish.
Best Regards,
Gary
You are making it overly complicated. My advice to you is to look at one of the links at the top of this page and select which one you are interested in - ArduPlane, ArduCopter, Rover - and then click the link under it that says '.. Manual'. Read the manual first and the come back to the forum for additional information. To try to make head or tail of the wide variety of information on here before you've done that is to invite frustration.