Twin Rotor Helicopter

Posted by Chris Card on March 15, 2012 at 8:36pm

Is it possible to configure APM for use with a twin rotor helicopter?

A friend of mine was wondering if it could be used with a Chinook type helicopter.

He thought that maybe it would take two APM boards, in communication with each other, to perform control.

I wonder if modifying the traditional helicopter firmware to re-mix or blend the outputs to two provide the required control signals for the two rotors.

I have never looked at how the real Chinook system works, so I can only make guesses.

Has this even been tried?

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Replies

  • Rob_Lefebvre March 26, 2012 at 9:29am

    Hi Chris, sorry I didn't see this right away.

    No, the APM cannot control a tandem rotor right now.  But it is possible to re-write the code to do so.  No, it will not be necessary or even a good idea, to use two APM's to do it.

    This is something I'm very interested in doing myself, it's just a case of getting the time and money to get the parts.  I even created an issue in the issues list to track it.  I understand the aerodynamics involved already, I just haven't started programming yet.

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