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3D Robotics

APM: The Universal Autopilot

Posted by Chris Anderson on August 20, 2011 at 8:17pm

3689420823?profile=originalI know this isn't news, but please indulge me a moment of pride in the APM dev teams. They have built the world's first "universal autopilot". The same hardware can fly all of the above--every kind of airplane, multicopter and helicopter, along with hardware-in-the-loop simulations--with one click to load new firmware in the Mission Planner. That's just amazing.

 

And if you want it to autonomously control a rover or boat, that's just a few more clicks. 

 

As far as I know, this has never been done before. Congrats to the whole APM dev team!

 

(And they're just getting started. You'll be blown away by what's coming...)

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Comments

  • avionics August 29, 2011 at 7:52am

    Thanks Chris or should i say diydrones team for recognising my appreciations, I am a Electrical and Electronics engineer myself but now have left this field for more than 25 years so you can see i am very behind but as an engineer I love your design and architecture design both hardware and software. I am 100% sure that you will be selected as the best UAV drone community in the world especially when your 32bit microcontroller hit the market man you have something in your hand that is abreast with the knife edge of technology and i certainly am looking forward to test fly my planes with that. The amount of books and readings you made me to do is just amazing !!!. THANK YOU again.

  • 3D Robotics
    Chris Anderson August 29, 2011 at 7:16am
    Avionics: Thanks! Really appreciate the kind words. We work hard here and these kind of appreciative notes make it all worth while!
  • 3D Robotics
    Chris Anderson August 29, 2011 at 7:14am
    dusl: it's here:
    http://code.google.com/p/ardupilot-mega/source/browse/#svn%2FTools%...
  • avionics August 29, 2011 at 1:02am

    I absolutely LOVE Diydrones for what they have done and have acheived, A very BIG Well done to you all.

  • dusl August 29, 2011 at 12:16am
    Chris Anderson
    How can i find the Mission Planner 's source code
  • hazy August 25, 2011 at 5:48am
    I personally look forward to the 32-bit ArduPilot much more
  • Robert Beatty August 22, 2011 at 5:38pm
    Great work, DIY Drones team. Well done.

    I second the motion for a Mac version.
  • avionics August 22, 2011 at 5:50am

    I think there is a problem with the Configration page of APM Planner. on NAV Pitch AS PID nothing shows although i tried and managed to write it in the command line on the left hand window of the same page but it doesnt show it in the Nav Pitch AS pid window. or at least it does it on mine. is it a bug or i have problem?.

     

    cheers

    Reza

  • Zane Gyorko August 22, 2011 at 5:44am

    @CrashingDuchman Possibly, but I just use it in wine right now, it's not great but it works.

  • CrashingDutchman August 22, 2011 at 4:54am

    @Zane: While waiting for a Mac version, would a virtual Windows machine work?

This reply was deleted.