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I'm happy to share with you today that this afternoon we had the first flight of a copter using ardupilot running in Linux (the evolution of the work performed this summer through the BeaglePilot project on the ardupilot code). It's particularly a pleasure for me to share these news because it's the result of two years trying to fly a copter running Linux (without a companion computer).

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HyHQpS8XwT0&feature=youtu.be

And a second one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BJud5CaxtqE&list=UUZroM1rZYmQQWCt3DOPcHmA

Setup has been done using 3DR Iris and a lot of tape (the Linux board is actually slightly bigger than the PX4 thereby there was no room inside of the hood for it).

Some remarks:

• The autopilot was running at 100 Hz but we are working on a version that runs at 400 Hz.
• It was using only one of the three IMUs included in the autopilot. Using the three of them might lead to a more stable result.
• We have now the three vehicles working on Linux!
• Take in account that i'm a horrible pilot (working on that while i write code ;) )

Future steps:

• BeaglePilot white paper (WIP)
• More work on the AP_HAL_Linux and the Linux kernel
• Flight tests

Regarding the flight tests, i'd like to point out the fantastic attitude that 3DR has had with us, developers, providing all the hardware needed. Hope this serves as an inspiration for other manufacturers.

This work is the result of the effort of many. Particularly the ardupilot dev team, Siddharth Bharat Purohit, Andrew Tridgell and Philip Rowse. It's been fun to walk this path with all of them and down the road it seems there's more ;).

Special thanks to Hugo Boyer for the recordings.

NOTE: The blog post has been renamed from "APM4.0:First copter flight" to "First copter flight using Linux". Thanks for the users that suggested it.