New product at Hobbyking, which looks like a stripped-down autopilot (just four waypoints, and no GCS) for $159. Fixed-wing only. Does anyone have any experience with it?
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New product at Hobbyking, which looks like a stripped-down autopilot (just four waypoints, and no GCS) for $159. Fixed-wing only. Does anyone have any experience with it?
You need to be a member of diydrones to add comments!
Comments
I agree with @Michael, the arkbird is meant to meet a different requirement than the APM.
Its strength lies in its simplicity; It's a whole lot easier to install & get running, and it 'does its job' relatively well without having to do a bunch of tuning & configuration (as you most likely would need to do with APM in order to achieve the same goal).
In this respect, APM almost seems 'too powerful and complex for its own good'; with so much complexity and sophistication comes the overhead of a steeper learning curve and significant time investment in order to obtain an optimal setup. Not everyone can, wants, or needs to deal with this kind of complexity in order to receive a massive amount of sophisticated functionality (most of which they'll never use). I've made the claim that perhaps there's a clear need to develop an 'APM light' solution that uses the same hardware, yet that is much more limited in functional scope, is geared more toward experienced, manual (*FPV*) piloting, and which has a much higher degree of simplicity. But I digress...
Again, the main purpose of the arkbird is to serve as an OSD for FPV, while at the same time providing 'out-of-the-box' flight stabilization & RTH solutions. The main drawback seems to be the fact that its firmware is currently closed-source, and that, apparently, there have been some concerns over quality control w/ the hardware. Aside from that, it looks like a pretty good for the price range.
As soon as someone comes up with an alternative, custom firmware for the arkbird's hardware setup, it could become a pretty powerful, yet reasonably-priced tool in the FPV world.
Comparing this to the Ardupilot seems like apples to oranges. This is sold as an OSD for FPV pilots not as a true auto pilot. You have the addition of having an auto pilot. built in for return to home
Thanks Bill, I found out GCS means Ground control station but the link you put up is really helpful.
John
Can anyone tell me what GCS is?
APM alogorithm and code is way advance belive me. nobody can even come close to it when u restrict the price to $200. it would be very frustrating to buy a chinese autopilot and then try to configure it. ofcourse do not exepct any support.
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showpost.php?p=23532202&postcount=9
It doesn't matter how good the product is or how "plug & play" it is, if you don't have the great support, it's not worth a dime.
Nope, but from the sound of it it's a waste of money. Ardupilot - $179, unlimited waypoints, free GCS, great support, wiki user manual, fixed and copter vs. Arkbird - $159, 4 waypoints, no GCS, Chinese-based support, probably no manual or poorly translated, fixed wing only....Its a no-brainer to me.