First flight with Snappy Ubuntu Core using APM

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Just a few days ago we had the first flight with Ubuntu Snappy Core with our Linux autopilot Erle-Brain (video  link).

As announced in a previous blog post, together with Canonical and the OSRF we aim to bring an app store for drones based on ROS and the simple "snaps". A new packaging system that Canonical just introduced (something similar to a "zip" file).

Soon we hope to release a microSD image that would allow everyone with a PXF and/or Erle-Brain play with Snappy and start creating drone applications.

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Comments

  • Moderator

    Hi Victor, 

    congratulation for you last flight but my suggestion is to ask to a good beta tester to check how wok your drone in a real validation test ... and tell to the community what is real advantages respect of standard STM32 flight control board. Don't see only the linux nerds point of view .. because for this class of user your product is fantastic ... ask ,to "stupid" end user what think about your product :)

  • Good points, Thomas.

    More processing power aboard drones is inevitable. And having a modern operating system opens up so many more interesting design possibilities. 

  • The biggest advantage I can see is for a drone to be able to make decisions based on it's environment.  If it's flying an environmental survey over a forest, extra data (higher resolution imagery, or maybe a second sensor that needs to be flown at a slower speed, or lower altitude) can be collected in areas that match ceratin parameters.  The initial data processing can be done on the craft before it gets back to the operator.  I've seen some companies offer this at places within cell tower coverage so that initial processing gets done off site and in real-time.  But outside of good cell coverage this isn't an option.

    Or maybe even more important is in developing Sense and Avoid procedures that the government will deem as safe...

  • First and foremost bragging rights. LOL

  • What is an actual benefit of having a Linux powered autopilot?

  • Excellent stuff. Congrats! 

  • Thanks for your words!

    @Tridge, it's using this configuration (PREEMPT option enable but did not apply the RT_PREEMPT patches). I should save some time and try it again.

    What i can share is that for some reason the BBB, in general, seems much more responsive than when using the Debian file system. Need to do more testing though.

  • Developer

    great to see! What kernel is it running, and do you have the RT patches applied?

  • Genial Victor!,

    Enhorabuena! It looks really promising!

  • Great job Victor, I look forward to seeing your progress with this.

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