Posted by TraumaPony on December 9, 2009 at 6:19pm
Hi, I'm trying to get started with UAVs, but I'm going to develop my autopilot first before buying an RC plane. What I'm thinking is the following:1. Design autopilot using Simulink2. Use the Arduino RTW target to put it onto the ArduPilot hardware3. Do a HIL simulation in X-Plane.Now, on to my questions:1. Is there a S-function + plugin for X-Plane that communicates with Simulink, so I can test my autopilot before my ArduPilot arrives? I've looked on the X-plane forums, but to no avail. The closest thing seemed to be from 2007, and it was broken anyway.2. Is there a plugin for X-Plane which communicates with an ArduPilot? I saw this, but that seems to be an external app which talks to X-Plane via UDP, and the protocol apparantly changes often.With reguard to the X-Plane plugin, I mean something that spits out the altitude, lat + long, pitch, yaw, and roll to Simulink/the ArduPilot via an FTDI cable, and in return receives commands from the autopilot such as desired aileron positions, throttle, and so on.Also, X-Plane is an extremely realistic, FAA-certified flight simulator. It has extremely detailed flight models (http://x-plane.com/pg_Inside_X-Plane_Pro.html is a brief explaination).
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I'am sorry. I mistook you for the person I imangened you to be and got all uppity. I have flown planes on and off for years and you never stop learning or having fun. I learned C by reading the Aurdupilot code and going to the Aurduino ref
Whoa slow down trama, You cant develop an autopilot until you are first a pilot. Learn to fly an RC plane first before anything. This IS MANDATORY. Don't lunch a plane in the air until you yourself can fly it. Once you can fly a plane and work with RC hardware, then you can think about developing an autopilot. This is not a computer simulation. Once that is done you need to know some C. There is no short cut or app to do it for you. I'am sure you know more about computers than an old guy like me, but there's a lot more to it than that. Your not flying airhogs in the back yard. Please don't give our hobby another black eye by doing something unwise. You will lose you plane and some one else might find it were it realy shouldn't be. This is reality and you make it sound like a video game. People here will help you. You can do it but you must develope your skills in the right order.
Good luck :)
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Good luck :)