Simple ArduPilot Plane

Hello DIY Drones community! As mentioned on my profile, I am a high school student beginning a UAV project with a couple partners. We have experience with robotic electronics, C, and RC planes, but we're all new to autonomous planes. We've decided to give it a shot, but I'd like to verify that we're thinking straight.

Here is a list of electronics I have considered, and I would like to make a purchase in the next day or two if possible.

ArduPilot or ArduPilot Mega - Although we are currently using a 4-channel radio, I'm leaning towards the Mega for the 2MB onboard memory (Is this correct?) and the extra channels we may need.
EM-406A SiRF III - Will this work with both the ArduPilot and the ArduPilot Mega? If not, which engines will?
IDG500 Dual 500°/s - This should be easy to interface, correct? I feel that two axes will be sufficient, so one of these should be enough.
FTDI Basic Breakout - 5V - I have an Arduino Duemilanove. Is it possible to program the ArduPilot using the Tx/Rx pins on the Duemilanove, or would it either be impossible or too much of a hassle?

As far as code goes, we have decided to use the ArduPilot code simply as a reference. Programming can be DIY also, and even though we may be reinventing the wheel, we believe this is how experience is gained. Is entirely reprogramming a system too much of a dream to become a reality, or is it normally done?

I would be grateful to get some advice on this! Any details would be appreciated.

If you spend a little more time here reading, you'll save a huge amount of dev time: Everything you need is in the tabs above. You just need to click on them!

1) ArduPilot Mega's onboard datalog memory is 16MB. 128k Flash memory for code.
2) APM works better with faster GPS modules, such as the uBlox and MediaTek
3) Why?? Please check out the APM IMU shield. If you want to reinvent the wheel be designing your own IMU board with accelerometers and gyros (again: why??) please allows for at least a year of research and programming.
4) Too much of a hassle.

Again, all of this is already developed, working and in use--you just need to click the links to see it. I do get the DIY spirit--that is in the name of the site--but there is no sense reinventing the wheel. Why not do something that hasn't already been done?

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Developer

Doug Weibel October 22, 2010 at 3:34pm

You can only do a simple "turn limiter" type autopilot with a 2 axis gyro. If you plan on being able to control pitch and roll you really need a 6 axis solution. Read about DCM on this site.

The MediaTek gps is cheaper than the EM406, and is really much better.
3D Robotics

Chris Anderson October 21, 2010 at 8:23pm

If you spend a little more time here reading, you'll save a huge amount of dev time: Everything you need is in the tabs above. You just need to click on them!

1) ArduPilot Mega's onboard datalog memory is 16MB. 128k Flash memory for code.
2) APM works better with faster GPS modules, such as the uBlox and MediaTek
3) Why?? Please check out the APM IMU shield. If you want to reinvent the wheel be designing your own IMU board with accelerometers and gyros (again: why??) please allows for at least a year of research and programming.
4) Too much of a hassle.

Again, all of this is already developed, working and in use--you just need to click the links to see it. I do get the DIY spirit--that is in the name of the site--but there is no sense reinventing the wheel. Why not do something that hasn't already been done?

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Simple ArduPilot Plane

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