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An Interview with Chris Anderson, CEO of 3D Robotics

Posted by Britt on February 22, 2013 at 2:14pm

I have a little blog about my experiences with quadcopters called OddCopter.com. I have been so impressed by the recent feature enhancements and popularity of the APM2.5+ platform that I wanted to track down Chris Anderson and see if he would do an interview for my blog. He graciously accepted and here are the results:

An Interview with Chris Anderson, CEO of 3D Robotics

I think the interview turned out great and contains some really interesting stuff. Please check it out if you get a chance.

I am fairly new to the DIYDrones community. I have only used the ArduCopter software via the MegaPiratesNG port running on a MultiWii Pro Board. I have a Naza, and when I had tried various open source projects in the past, the altitude hold feature didn't seem to measure up, However, I noticed the recent iterations MegaPiratesNG had huge improvements in Altitude Hold. I also setup and flew a few missions a while back. It was a little scary for me, but it worked great. This has gotten my really excited about getting the real thing and giving it a try! 

Britt

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Comments

  • Britt February 23, 2013 at 7:07am

    @Sergei 

    Thanks. I must have misquoted him. I will take that out.

  • Jethro Hazelhurst February 23, 2013 at 5:39am

    Great interview, thanks!

  • sergei lupashin February 23, 2013 at 4:26am

    @Britt, FYI, "ETH Zurich" and "University of Zurich" are two completely separate entities. The PX4 was developed at ETH Zurich (www.ethz.ch) -- see, in fact, the address of the pixhawk website: https://pixhawk.ethz.ch/

    Interesting interview, though, thanks!

  • Britt February 22, 2013 at 8:30pm

    @J

    Ah, AutoQuad. Have you tried one? I have. At €399.00 and with a very complex setup and calibration process, I don't see how you can compare it to the APM2.5+. I am not knocking it. I think it is an interesting FC, but not a mainstream product at this point. I just looked it up on Viacopter where it is still sold as a "Public Beta".

    http://viacopter.eu/shop/flight-controllers/8

  • Rob_Lefebvre February 22, 2013 at 7:54pm

    I assume "Autopilot" means "AutoQuad"?

    As for the stats on commits, that must be only for post-Github commits.  When we moved to github, a lot of history appears to be lost and I think all the commit history was lost.

    But there is some truth in that stat anyway.  I have a few commits waiting to be pulled in, but I don't know about anybody else.  I've mostly been doing work on my own stuff lately.

  • Britt February 22, 2013 at 7:41pm

    @J

    OpenPilot Revo has not been released yet, but I am sure it will be a great product. The CC3D and Copter Control don't do waypoints on multirotors. PX4 is sold by 3DR. I am not familiar with "Autopilot". Have a link?

  • Britt February 22, 2013 at 6:53pm

    @Kevin Finisterre aka Drone Savant,

    My comment was directed @J, not you.

  • Britt February 22, 2013 at 6:23pm

    @J,

    I haven't recieved anything from DIYDrones, but I may receive a demo board and would like to be set up as a 3DR affiliate. What I currently get from other affiliate and ad programs covers my hosting costs, but nowhere near pays for the equipment I buy or compensates me for the time I put into blogging.

    When I started my blog, I was a total newb, and I found simple, step by step explanations for stuff like setup, wiring, tuning, flashing ESCs, etc. were hard to find. When people started coming to the site it motivated me to stick with it. I mostly post quadcopter related news, do walk-throughs and builds, and some high level informational posts. I only post about stuff that has worked for me and that I think are good products. I think the KK2.0 board and Simonk ESC firmware are both amazing and have posted a lot about them, Recently, a company sent me a demo board that I think is a bit expensive and the firmware needs more development. I will be sending it back and not doing any reviews are walk-throughs.

    I tried an earlier version of the Arducopter port and thought unlimited waypoint missions were very cool. But, I felt the altitude hold needed work. I was interested, but not enough to buy a board. The more recent releases obviously rock! It is the first reasonably priced board I have seen that compares with DJI Naza on Alt Hold and Position Hold, yet it has a TON of additional features. I am interested in APM only because I think it offer the most features for the money. Have you checked the price of closed source, unlimited waypoint controllers? Also, it is an American based company who supports the development community. What is there not to like?

    I see from your profile that you are an anonymous “DIYDrones Hater”. I hope this helps quell you skepticism. 

  • Gary McCray February 22, 2013 at 5:31pm

    Good and germane interview and gives us insight into Chris and 3DR's current and future directions and emerging capabilities.

  • Britt February 22, 2013 at 3:15pm

    I don't think I did, but trying the clone has got me wanting the real deal. Also, it can be a bit tedious getting it them to work, but I like to tinker around with stuff that most folks don't.

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