I'm pleased to announce that we've joined forces with the other Arduino-based powerhouse in the aerial robotics world, the AeroQuad quadcopter team, to extend the ArduPilot platform to whirlybirds of all kinds. The project, called ArduCopter, will use the ArduPilotMega and IMU shield hardware along with a low-cost custom platform that will be available commercially to provide a full quad UAV with both stabilization and GPS waypoint navigation. It builds on the awesome work of Jose Julio in ArduPilot quad development, with the excellent full-systems integration of the AeroQuad team. We expect that first code and hardware will be available this summer.
And here's the impressive work of the AeroQuad team:
Another team is also extending this to traditional helis, starting with the Trex 450 heli (and its equivalents), which should be ready for release this fall. Along with Blimpduino, this should make for 100% coverage of all aerial robotics platforms on the Arduino platform, with shared libraries and ground stations across projects. Go Arduino!
We'll be setting up a proper microsite here, along with dedicated tab, for the project in the next few days.
If you haven't already seen this preview of what the ArduPilot/ArduIMU combo can do with quads, check this out:
And here's the impressive work of the AeroQuad team:
Here's the announcement from the AeroQuad team:
ArduCopter - The Full Featured UAV Multicopter!
Hey guys, as many of you know the AeroQuad has teamed up with DIY Drones on developing a very full featured multicopter! Chris from DIY Drones has proposed the name of this new effort to be called the ArduCopter! It will be based on the ArduPilot Pro Mega (APM) and the APM sensor board currently nicknamed the Oil Pan. Here's an initial feature list and software road map. Please chime in! Your input is valuable! I'll keep updating this front page until we agree on the first version of the ArduCopter's capabilities.
ArduCopter Feature ListSoftware Roadmap
- 6 Degree of Freedom IMU stabilized control
- Gyro stabilized flight mode enabling acrobatics (loops and barrel rolls)
- GPS for position hold
- Magnetometer for heading determination
- Barometer for altitude hold
- IR sensor integration for obstacle avoidance
- Sonar sensor for automated takeoff and landing capability
- Automated waypoint navigation
- Motor control using low cost standard PWM Electronics Speed Controllers (ESC's)
- On board flight telemetery data storage
- Mounted camera stabilization capability
- Wireless command & telemetry for long distance communication
- Capability to fly in "+", "x", hexa and octo configurations
- Battery level detection
- User configurable LED flight pattern
- Capability to use any R/C receiver
- ArduCopter Configuration and Ground Control Software
- Realtime graphs of flight data
- GUI for configuration of PID and other flight parameters
- On Screen Display integration
- Waypoint programming using Google Maps
- Mixertable view to auto configure "+", "x", hexa and octo configurations
- Initial baseline using Jose Julio's v3 software
- Provides absolute angle PID flight control
- Obstacle avoidance
- Waypoint navigation
- Generalize basic ArduCopter functions (ie. Separate PPM receiver input and motor control functions into separate libraries. Allows future coding of PWM vs. I2C ESC's)
- Emphasis on developing new capability into easy to use C++ libraries
- Integrate user defined EEPROM storage capability
- Develop/optimize AeroQuad serial real-time command/telemetry for ArduCopter
- Integrate AeroQuad Configurator for external software configuration of ArduCopter
- Rename Configurator to Ground Control Station and integrate graphical programming of waypoint navigation
- Integrate AeroQuad rate PID control
- Integrate mixertable configuration for multicopter configurations
- Integrate AeroQuad camera stabilization
- Integrate I2C motor control
- Develop capability to wirelessly control ArduCopter directly from Ground Control Station (USB joystick controller from laptop or through waypoint programming)
Comments
What is the size and model of that landing gear you used in your copter? I need one.....
It's a safety feature on radio to prevevt any accidental oopsie daicies :)
Nice quad. I see you also used microkopter chassis. I connected four escs with BEC into the APM and it worked well but I do not know it is a bad thing.
Did you fly your quad? Based on my experience and location of your battery there may be small oscillation on the roll axis and no oscillations on the pitch axis using default PID settings. I did not try yet but locating battery diagonally referenced to arms may be better.
i just put the batteries and turn it on... it begins to.. bip ..bip ..with an error in the lcd... "SWITCHING ERROR"...now i´m trying to find what it means in the imax manual ( this radio don´t have one) and can´t find nothing... . If somebody knows what this error is please tell me... The radio does not enter the menus.. only bips and presents this error...
@MasterBaker, yes having shrink tube like that causes for sure some problems, those GPS antennas are rather sensitive and because they are emitting power out, if you block that you might burn your GPS chip. Also even if material does not touch physical antenna, it will "tune" it to different frequency and that way lowers down a lot of its sensitivity. GPS freqency is 1575.42 Mhz and placing wrong material on top of antenna can tune it's internal frequency -+10 Mhz and well I probably don't even need to say but it's kinda bad thing and should try to avoid it as much as possible.
Different materials affects different way on those antennas, if you know how they react there is a way to use that info to make it more sensitive and better but you also need to have special measurement tools to find it's behavior.
Plugin all BECs is not so big problem but you should try to avoid it, they might start to fight between BECs and kill them selfs on worst case. If you think that you would add mode current capacity, well yes kinda but not really due the BEC who is strongest will take lead position and push most of current out and when it fails, next on line replaces it. I would suggest to cut center line from 3 ESCs and use BEC from only one ESC.
This is same reason why we connect our ESCs on official ArduCopter to it's power distribution pcb, and from p-pcb we then connect only signal cables to APM along with one BEC connection.
Thanks for the tip on the gps a couple posts back. I had a piece of heatshrink i put around mine to protect it. Im guessing the heatshrink is a no-no also like the tape?
A question about PID settings. I have some flybarless helicopters and when you get big wags in the tail you lower the P Gain and small fast wags you lower the I gain. Is this essentially the same on the arducopter? Also is the derivative kinda like the overall gain and usually the first one to be adjusted?
A question about ESCs. I am having my oscilloscope sent to where I am but it will be a while. If i plug all 4 escs w/ the BECs into the APM is it a bad thing? Will they still deliver a clean 5v or will there be problems when all 4 are used at once?
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