ArduPlane home page

Convert any RC airplane into a fully-autonomous UAV!

Just add the APM 2 autopilot to any RC aircraft and it becomes a fully-programmable flying robot with a powerful ground station and Mission Planner.

Features include:

Return to Launch with a flick of your RC toggle switch or a mouse click in the graphical Ground Station
Unlimited 3D GPS waypoints
Built-in camera control
Fully-scriptable missions
One-click software load, and easy point-and-click configuration in the powerful Mission Planner. NO programming required!
Replay recorded missions and analyze all the data with a graphing interface
Supports two-way telemetry with Xbee wireless modules.
Point-and-click waypoint entry or real-time mission commands while the UAV is in the air
Fly with a joystick or gamepad via your PC--no need for RC control!
Built-in failsafe will bring your aircraft home in the case of radio loss

All instructions and software are here.

APM 2 is an open source, Arduino-compatible, pro-quality autopilot. It is the most advanced IMU-based open source autopilot available today, and provides an entire UAV control system with scriptable missions with 3D waypoints, in-flight uploading of commands and powerful ground station software.

APM 2 supports any kind of of vehicle with a one-click change of code. Available code include ArduPlane (fixed wing), ArduCopter (rotary wing), ArduRover (ground vehicles) and more.

Everything you need to create an ArduPlane UAV:

* APM 2.5 autopilot with GPS ($179)

* [Optional] Telemetry kit ($75).

You'll also need a at least a five-channel RC radio setup, a soldering iron, a mini USB cable and of course something that flies! (We're partial to the SkyFun delta wing (right) and
Bixlee 2 powered glider (left) or its equivalents ourselves).

Resources:

Manual
Source code/firmware

Note: ArduPilot Mega requires no programming, but it's open source and you're welcome to modify it if you'd like. If you are going to play with the code, you can use the free Arduino IDE to edit and upload the code to the ArduPilot board.

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Comments

Dean November 21, 2010 at 1:42pm

Should the GPS data show up in the logged data file as well as the telemetry stream even when flying in non guided modes (e.g. manual, stabilize, and fly by wire A)? My logged GPS data is always just zeros, and the GPS data does not appear at all in the telemetry stream. When I run the GPS test in CLI mode I do indeed get correct position fixes (but the number of satellites is listed as 0 which is obviously incorrect). I updated my MediTek firmware about a month ago in an effort to fix the problem, but it persists. I have brought this question up several times now on this blog, but no one ever seems to answer it. Could someone please help? Thanks!
Uwe Gartmann November 15, 2010 at 3:09pm

@Michael - Timer 2 isused by I2C communication. I use Timer0 OCR0A interrupt instead. This timer is also used by Arduino library, but only on the rollover interrupt. :-)
Brett Elmore November 9, 2010 at 4:24pm

@Michael, Welp, sorry to waste your time. The problem turned out to be a stale version of the .zip. Chrome was being too smart for its own good and wasn't downloading the updated version (it was using a cached copy because of the matching filenames I presume). Clearing download data allowed the new version to download and this fixed the problem. Thanks again for posting the update and hopefully the solution to my mistake might help someone else in a similar predicament.
Developer

Michael Smith November 9, 2010 at 3:38pm

@Brett - Make sure you have the updated menu.cpp in your AP_Common library. I've just checked the zipfile that Chris uploaded, and the fix is in there.
Brett Elmore November 9, 2010 at 3:30pm

@Chris, Thanks for the update, but the problem, unfortunately, remains. I'll do some more poking around to make sure it isn't something on my end, but I did try loading the code with no changes except to uncomment the proper GPS option in APM_Config.h without success, and reverting to an older version (not sure which, filenames are identical) of the beta .zip works fine.
3D Robotics

Chris Anderson November 9, 2010 at 11:18am

@Brett, @Michael: I've uploaded a new zip file with the fixed library. That should do it, but let me know if there are still any issues.
Brett Elmore November 9, 2010 at 11:05am

@Michael: Great, thanks!
Developer

Michael Smith November 9, 2010 at 11:04am

@Uwe - I think timer 2 is currently unused.
Developer

Michael Smith November 9, 2010 at 11:02am

@Brett - This was a bug in the library code introduced in r760 and fixed in r809 yesterday. If you are working from the 1.0-Beta Sketchbook in svn, update and you should be good to go. Otherwise, the next zipfile should address the issue.
3D Robotics

Chris Anderson November 9, 2010 at 9:31am

Brett: Thanks for the heads up...we'll check that out.

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