Check out today's awesome demo by Tridge. An ArduRover launches an ArduPlane! (Also note that the ArduPlane is flying beta ArduPlane software on the PX4 board. We're getting close to a dev release on that. Very exciting...)
[UPDATE] Tridge adds some details in the comments:
The SkyFun was in FBWA mode, with throttle off until after it lifted off the rover (the prop was resting on the APM on the rover, so zero throttle was important!). Both the rover and skyfun were running current APM git master. The SkyFun was using a PX4FMU board running the NuttX port of ArduPlane. Today was our first test flights of ArduPlane on the PX4, and it flew very well. Flight logs from today are here
The camera was being operated by our youngest club member Marias, who just got his MAAA gold wings today.
The reason we were doing this was to test the concept for possible use for launching our X8. We've found that hand launching the X8 with a heavy load on board is quite dubious, so we've mostly been using a bungee, but we thought a rover launch would be fun. Today was a test run with the SkyFun.
We've also built a catapult system for the X8 which we have yet to test.
Comments
Sorry for the late reply. I'm interested to see how you want to port Ardupilot to PX4. Considering that there is already different software running on it.
Will Ardupilot be another NuttX application in the existing software eco-system? Or will it run bare-bones? Chris's link points to the PX4 site, which to my knowledge makes no reference to Arduino legacy code.
Hi All,
If you want to compile Arduplane code yourself, don't forget that you need to use this version of the Arduino IDE: http://code.google.com/p/ardupilot-mega/downloads/detail?name=ArduP...= to accomdate the HAL.
Regards,
TCIII
Hi Tridge,
I dind't find what you're talking about ap_hal and apm development blog.
Regards
That just put a picture in my head.
Anybody remember the Thunderbirds episode where the plane lands on the 3 recovery vehicles, 1 master and 2 slaves.
Yes, it is a pretty neat idea. I think the Turnigy 1/5th scale short course truck, while obviously more expensive, will work better on a typically grass runway.
Now, landing on the dolly, THAT would be impressive!
That's brilliant, a launch dolly that comes home by itself. What a great tool for a club to own.
Well done lads.
Great job! Looking forward to the landing.. Back onto the rover!
Hi Gary,
As Chris said, the initial aim was to get the current ArduCopter, ArduPlane, APMrover2 codebase as we use on APM2 on the PX4. That is what the testing yesterday was all about.
The key to all this is something called AP_HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer). I'll do a blog post today about AP_HAL and what it means for APM development.
Cheers, Tridge
Gary: PX4 is currently in developer release and is documented in a stand-alone developer site here, which you can follow for current status. Once we are finished with the ArduCopter/Plane/Rover ports, we'll issue a public release of those and integrate it into the regular ArduCopter/Plane/Rover manuals. We'll also then release a version of PX4 that's more mainstream-ready (enclosure, simplified interfaces, etc) like APM 2.5+.
For the time being the functionality will be the same as standard ArduCopter/Plane/Rover on APM 2.5, since they share a codebase. But since the PX4 has more memory and processing power, we'll eventually start adding new features to take advantage of that.
This is part of our long-term roadmap of making ArduCopter/Plane/Rover available on range of hardware, from simple and relatively cheap consumer packages to higher-end autopilots for academic research and professional use.
BTW, the standard 3DR Optical Flow board should be back in stock in a couple weeks. One of the components was end-of-life'd by the manufacturer, so we had to source an alternative.
Fantastic Randy and Tridge.
It seems to me that the PX4 is soon to become a completely parallel effort to the APM.
I personally would very much like to know specifically what the PX4's hardware advantages / disadvantages are in comparison to the APM and what sort of software development tools it will need.
From the Optical flow demo I saw of the PX4 it seemed to possibly be more "capable" than the APM and I have noticed that the optical flow part for the APM is no longer appearing for sale at 3D Robotics.
In any case it seems to me that the PX4 is deserving of at least a dedicated BLOG of it's own and soon will need updated Arducopter and Arduplane Wiki entries as well.
We really need an ongoing capability and status report on the PX4.
If there is already one somewhere else, please let me know the link.
Great plane launch concept too, I have no doubt that multicopters taking off and landing on mobile robotic platforms is not very far in the future at all too.
(Just a thought stretching wheelbase and and widening the track would really improve stability for what is essentially a mobile catapult.) You probably already thought of that, just saying.
BTW Randy, FlameWheels do make really good development platforms don't they.
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