We start to send the first batch of Multipilot32 to user and DevCoreTeam , i hope that this video will be usefull in power on and uploading firmare . In the next day will be available more info about the first flyable code . The first software that i upgrade to MP32 is Arducopter NG. The first revision of code will be only a porting of mono task application to new micro controller . This is only first step of our work , a starting point this micro is more fast until 24x more flash 512 kbyte , more ram 64 kbyte ram. An a lot of advanced feature. And is cheaper :)
I open a Call for C / C++ developer and beta tester that would support the development of our project.
In the next day will be available new code and doc in source branch inside redfox74. if you need more info contact me directly in PM or leave a message in the thread.
The board is compatible with all the DiyDrones accessories and is an upgrade of cpu from avr 8 bit processor to 32 Bit Arm Cortex . In this first stage we need advanced user that can develop code and have experiences on writing code on micro processor.
This is the official thread where there're some info about the project and roadmap.
after some time of evaluation of software architecture for Multipilot32 I decide to put on it a Real Time Operating Systems.
Instead of choose FreeRtos or other clone . I found this interesting operating system that yet support HAL .
Above there's an introduction of Chibi OS , what do you think about ? My idea is to rewrite the lib of our Arducopter project using a professional approach with a Realtime Kernel on low level OS call.
A video of Chibios User that develop his quadcopter ... :)
This document will help you understand what ChibiOS/RT has to offer in a world with so many similar products.
Why another RTOS:
The first question to be answered is: there was really the need for yet another RTOS? There are several reasons:
The ChibiOS/RT ancestor has been created more than 15 years ago and while it had far less features than the current product it was complete and functioning. ChibiOS/RT is just a new (and silly) name given to something created when there were not many free RTOSs around (actually none, at least none in my knowledge, there was no widespread Internet at that time).
When, after a while, I needed a RTOS again, none of the existing FOSS projects met my expectations or my ideas of how a RTOS should be. I decided that work on that old project was a better idea than contribute to, or fork, something else.
I wanted another toy.
How is different ?
Well, there are some design choices that should be explained and contribute to make ChibiOS/RT a peculiar design. Nothing really new in itself but the whole is interesting.
Not Just a scheduler.
While the ChibiOS/RT kernel can be used even alone, see the General Architecture document, the RTOS also offers other subsystems:
Support for startup and board initialization.
An HAL abstracting many common device drivers, see the Features Matrix.
Integration with other open source projects like File Systems, Networking Stacks etc.
ChibiOS/RT is meant to be a whole operating system not just a scheduler.
Static Design.
Everything in the kernel is static, nowhere memory is allocated or freed, there are three allocator subsystems but those are optional and not part of core OS, dynamic services are built as a layer on top of the fully static kernel. Safety is something you design in, not something you can add later, using memory allocation in the kernel is unnecessary and relying on that is just asking for trouble.
No Internals structure and tables.
The kernel has no internal tables, there is nothing that must be configured at compile time or that can overflow at run time, no upper bounds, the internal structures are all dynamic even if all the objects are statically allocated.
No error Condition.
System APIs have no error conditions, all the previous points are finalized to this objective. Everything you can invoke in the kernel is designed to not fail unless you pass garbage as parameters, stray pointers for examples. The APIs are not slowed down by parameter checks, parameter checks (and consistency checks) do exist but only when the related debug switches are activated. All the static core APIs always succeed if correct parameters are passed. Exception to this rule are the optional dynamic APIs that, of course, can report memory exhausted.
Very Simple API.
Each API function should have the parameters you would expect for that function and do just one thing with no options.
Fast and Compact.
Note, first “fast” then “compact”, the focus is on speed and execution efficiency and then on code size. This does not mean that the OS is large, the kernel size with all the subsystems activated weighs around 5.5KiB (STM32, Cortex-M3), see the section ”Performance and Testing Data” for more details about performance and footprint. It would be possible to make something even smaller but:
It would be pointless, it is already really small.
I would not trade efficiency or features in order to save few bytes.
Test and Metric.
I think it is nice to know how an OS is tested and how it performs before committing to use it. Test results on all the supported platforms and performance metrics are included in each ChibiOS/RT release. The test code is released as well, all the included demos are capable of executing the test suite and the OS benchmarks. See the section ”Performance and Testing Data” for more details about performance and footprint.
Ardupilot32 is Alive , I start to make some prototype , the first two boards assembled work fine , this week i don't prepare a video with a weekly update because i'm working on a lot of things.
I'm working on IDE , On Bootloader , I'm working on Wrapper for Arduino compatibility, I'm working on testing hardware , the OilPan interface ... a lot lot of things. ...
So I open a official repo with a raw code of my project ,some source code , ide that i'm using , some startup info ... I hope that for the next week i have some time to update doc and info on the board.
In the last two day I start t o upgrade the last revision of xduino for support Ardupilot32 , It'snt mature project .. don't support i2c , spi , pwm . But is a good point of start for my work.
After some months of development this is the first flight of ArduPilot32 platform.
Hardware :
Ardupilot32 pre alpha hw.
IMU Oilpan.
Low Cost (6$) standard PWM ESC.
PPM_SUM receiver.
Lipo 2200 3S
Propeller 10
For this flight I using Arducopter 32 NG firmware. This is my porting of original code to Arm 7 Cortex A3 platform. With this micro will be available more power , more flash and ram resources
This space and performances its very good for improve performance of our Drone. The Era of our ARM Drone's Started.
In this week , I'm working to port APM_ADC , APM_RC , APM_EEPROM , WIRE and other library to Arm Platform . We' add the support of Radio reciver, gyro and acc sensor that using SPI bus. EEPROM .
We're ready to fly. We need some debug on i2c bus and start to do preflight check.
In the picture you can see my first proto of Quadfox that using Arm Cortex3 Microcontroller instead of AVR 8 bit. So at the end of this week i recived the first Multipilo32 , then I have yet ready a lot of code to test on it.
Today I'm working on IDE for Multipilot 2.0 . I found different kind of approach available For developing application on Arm Cortex A3 microcontroller.
Actually I'm studing this kind of platform :
Xduino , Maple IDE and CooCox IDE.
The first two ide are Clone of official Arduino project . This kind of ide use same Arduino Java ide and add support for gcc arm compiler instead of gcc . Normaly support usb uploading of firmware don' support jtag debugging. The Maple is better of xduino at the moment. The standard arm library is wrapped for using same arduino language sintax. Is not yet fully compatible with original arduino sintax.
The second one instead is a Eclipse ide , that include support for makefile automatic production , gcc compiler , linker, debugger and support Jtag interface for debug and upgrade firmware.
Support a lot of functionality of ARM micro , is available a micro operating systems that support task and preemptive multitasking.
Personally I prefer second kind of approach , more professional approach not for entry level programmer . The first kind of approach is very good for people that normaly use arduino for development of his application .
My idea at the moment is to support all kind of systems .. actualy the second kind of ide don't support the arduino .pde application ,but i think that is possible to develop a wrapper class and a mod for eclipse that support this kind of improvment.
Hello everyone, a year and a half ago came Multipilot 1.0 an inertial platform for applications and semi-professional hobby. After the excellent results obtained from the marketing of these cards, and participation in development projects as open source and Aeroquad Arducopter and 'born www.virtualrobotix.com community. Today our community is proud to present the evolution of our project: Multipilot 2.0 ST.
two years ago i developed a closed source Brushless Controller. It's based on ATmega 8 and support i2c,PWM,Serial Port. The ESC support until 20 Amp and the electronic is present a shunt resistor to evaluate the quantity of energy that the motor need in realtime.
So now I would to port a Arduino bootloader to this board and develop an opensoure code for it.
But i need help for this project ... There're some people that would join me in this project ? That's is good choice for Multipilot 2.0 / Ardupilot 32 platform.
In thevideo,you can'see theshowthatImadeatthe TeatroDonizettiinBergamo.IusedFoxDronemy own implementation ofAR.DronetowhichI addedagroundstationthat allowsthe managementof theaircraftthroughthePS3gamepadandtransmittingvideoonVideoWallforliveperformances. Inthe showyouseethatLoganistheMagician'conjureFoxDroneandexplains itto the public. Thepresentationexplainshowtheuseofdronesyou cancreatespectacularvideoapplicationsfortourism promotion.
This isthepromotional videoof the provinceofBergamo,madeby : drones,helicoptersandcomputergraphics...cometo visitBergamofrom all over theworld...comepeoplewilllookatus:)
European FoxTeam are doing the first test of Quadfox in Acro mode. We're doing some looping. The Quad Pilot is Giuseppe D'Angelo FoxTeam member the Father of HG3 .
In the video He explain how is possible to do looping with QuadFox v3 . At the end of looping for stabilize Quad he use switch to put quad in stable mode.
today i'm starting to doing the test of Quadfox v3 GPS . I check the functionality of GPS and Magnetometer during the navigation . I happy of my results . I put on my car my quad and going around the city. For doing this test I start to evaluate the status of our advanced 3D Groundstation developed of my company Laser Navigation for professional application. Our company is available for develop some customization of our technology for different kind of application on air , on land or underwater.
We are working to support in our GCS :
Multipilot Board :
QuadFox v3 GPS
Fox Hybrid.
HG3.2
AeroQuad 2.0.1.
Ardupilot MP.
Arducopter MP.
ArduRov.
And all the other device that using the same protocol.
The functionality of 3D Navigator Ground Station are :
Multi veichle sharing same aerial sapce with TCP/IP Architecture.
Customization of 3d model of veichle.
Realtime telemetry view.
Simulation and Replay log view.
3D Gis Engine for visualization and managment of terrain , veichle , waypoint , live video and 3D Landmarks.
Continuos mapping feature.
Visualization of flight instruments , realtime data of Multipilot HDR Imu : ACC , GYRO , Magnetometer , GPS
Realtime control of payload , using Joystick or inertial 3d device as Iphone / Ipad.
OSD for realtime video recording with different kind of page : for eng. , Pilot , Payload ecc.
We can develop driver for implement different kind of device , sensor , payload ecc . 3D Engine is developed in our company the project was started in 2001 .
Hello everyone, quadfox v3 is ready to be tested for integration with the magnetometer and GPS functions .This is my first prototype configuration.In the coming days I will start to conduct the tests.The reference code is:
Some video of FoxTeam member with their QuadFox .. We're flying and testing stable mode using Arducopter MP ( MultiPilot revision) .. the result is fantastic ;) Then next step will be GPS hold and return to home ... ;)
Put GoProHD on QuadFox and fly only using throttle and yaw i don't touch roll ..
In this video is possible to see the incredible stability of DCM V3 developed by Jose Julio a member of Arducopter DEVTEAM.In this video I enjoyed playing with my QuadFox. Tell me your impressions.Iported this algorithm and the original code of Arducopter multipilot hardware and controllers i2c hardware as well as original APM impressive results in terms of stability in this video you can see how the aircraft is stable and easily implementablewith automatic flight control systems, GPS, magnetometer, sonar and so on.Congratulations toJose and all members of the DevTeam.I am proud to help develop Arducopter project:) Thanks Chris for this opportunity and Jani:)
Stay tuned :
This is the Official thread : http://www.virtualrobotix.com/forum/topics/multipilot-20-ap32-building