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ArduPilot now available to buy!

Posted by Chris Anderson on January 6, 2009 at 9:00am

Great news! ArduPilot is now available to buy at Sparkfun. The price is $24.95 (or buy 100 at $19.96 each ;-)). Note: there is a limited number available now, but Sparkfun can make more pretty quickly so get your order in now and they'll be filled from backorder in the order they were received.

[Update on availability from Sparkfun: ~15 coming out of production today/morrow. 63 more PCBs ready. Waiting on xtals (probably about a week).]

You'll also need an EM406 GPS module, and for all but the most stable planes, an FMA Co-Pilot, so unless you already have those items, the total cost of the autopilot will be around $155.

Huge thanks to Nathan Siedle at Sparkfun for helping us get through the production snafus and otherwise taking this project under his wing. Now let's win his autonomous vehicle competition with an ArduPilot-guided plane!

Tags: ardupilot
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Comments

  • tychoc January 6, 2009 at 1:08pm
    @Chris. I don't see why downloading the runtime engine is that hard. Right now the ArduPilot requires you to download the Arduino IDE to set it up. Anyway, I would have liked to see LabVIEW used for the groundstation since that would have made it easy to implement addon features.

    Do you have a copy of the current LabVIEW based groundstation that you were working on?

    thanks,
    -tychoc
  • 3D Robotics
    Chris Anderson January 6, 2009 at 12:37pm
    @tychoc. We did use LabView, but we're thinking about switching to C# to use Tom Pycke's groundstation code. LabView is very easy to develop in but hard to distribute. If you distribute the executable people need to download the runtime engine, and if you distribute the code they need the expensive development environment.
  • 3D Robotics
    Chris Anderson January 6, 2009 at 12:35pm
    @Ian: Arduino is indeed limited, but we believe that the excellent IDE and community around it more than makes up for its limitations. We are committed to staying with the Arduino track (which will become more powerful as Arduino evolves with the more powerful AVR processors) for this reason.

    The way we compensate for the limitations of the individual Atmega chips is by dual- or triple-coring them. For instance, ArduPilot Pro uses two Atmega168s, and will probably grow to three as we add SD card datalogging.

    As you can see here, DIY Drones community members have made autopilots from every chip you mentioned and a lot more. So there's a lot to choose from--one size doesn't fit all. Maybe one of the more powerful chips is better for your needs. But we like Arduino for our projects on the basis of ease of use and simplicity.
  • Moderator
    Gary Mortimer January 6, 2009 at 12:15pm
    Well done Chris, some of us have been watching for a while top job.
  • T3
    Sami Finnila January 6, 2009 at 11:34am
    Looking good! Can't wait for the ArduPilotPro to come out so that I can get to program one!

    But any ways: Thank you Chris and Jordi for your hard work!
  • ian January 6, 2009 at 11:12am
    Hi, not sure if this is appropriate place to post this (?).

    But, have you experieced problems with the limited speed/memory of the arduino platform? I am looking to experiment with UAV's (either fixed wing or a quadrotor) an have been considering which microcontroller to invest time in to learn. It seems the Parallax Propeller, newer PIC's or an ARM7 would offer more wiggle room than stuffing everything into one thread on an Atmega168. Just curious what your experiences have been with this platform. I noticed other projects are using multiple microcontrollers such as Vicacopter (multiple PIC's) uavp (ARM7 w/ AVR's), yet mikroquad seems to be getting by with a single arduino core for a quad. I'm not adverse to OO code, so that aspect of the propeller does not scare me. I'd love to buy this board if I thought it would be a good long term strategy. I'm trying to balance minimizing initial investment of time to having a stable craft (i.e. relying on other's code), an have a microcontroller platform that is a good long term investment of my time. Do you plan to stick with the Arduino for future UAV development? Thanks.
  • Mike January 6, 2009 at 11:00am
    That's right Pat, just ordered 3 pillows as well...

    Mike
  • tychoc January 6, 2009 at 10:57am
    @Chris,
    Did you end up using LabVIEW for the ground station? If so, I'm very interested in the development.

    -tychoc
  • 3D Robotics
    Chris Anderson January 6, 2009 at 10:54am
    @Valery: Developers are very welcome! We're now working on the ground station but perhaps we could integrate your great Pict'Earth image processing software?
  • Moderator
    Sgt Ric January 6, 2009 at 10:52am
    @Pat
    I'm sorry you feel that way... I did not mean to step on anyone's toes by getting more than one.

    There are 3 of us in my group and we will be able to make use of both right away.
    (perhaps not in the air until this minus 30 degree weather clears up, but we are serious about this, especially since there is still alot to do, configuration wise for what we intend)
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