Introducing the PX4 autopilot system

The PX4 team is pleased to announce early availability of the PX4 autopilot platform, with hardware available immediately from 3D Robotics.

The platform is a low cost, modular, open hardware and software design targeting high-end research, hobby and industrial autopilot applications.

PX4 is an expandable, modular system comprising the PX4FMU Flight Management Unit (autopilot) and a number of optional interface modules.

The PX4FMU autopilot features include:

168Mhz ARM CortexM4F microcontroller with DSP and floating-point hardware acceleration.
1024KiB of flash memory, 192KiB of RAM.
MEMS accelerometer and gyro, magnetometer and barometric pressure sensor.
Flexible expansion bus and onboard power options.

Expansion modules available at release include:

PX4IOAR This module interfaces PX4 to the AR.Drone motor controllers, allowing a complete quadrotor to be assembled using an AR.Drone frame and motors.
PX4IO A flexible interface module with support for eight PWM servo outputs, relays, switched power and more.

As an open hardware design, third-party and DIY expansion modules can be easily developed for specific applications, and more PX4 modules are in development.

In addition to the versatile hardware platform, PX4 introduces a sophisticated, modular software environment built on top of a POSIX-like realtime operating system. The modular architecture and operating system support greatly simplify the process of experimenting with specific components of the system, as well as reducing the barriers to entry for new developers.

Adding support for new sensors, peripherals and expansion modules is straightforward due to standardized interface protocols between software components. Onboard microSD storage permits high-rate logging and data storage for custom applications. MAVLink protocol support provides direct integration with existing ground control systems including QGroundControl and the APM Mission Planner.

Pricing of the PX4 components reflects more than a year of careful development and a strong commitment from our manufacturing partner.

This release is targeted at early adopters and developers looking for a more capable platform than existing low-cost autopilots. With more than an order of magnitude more processing power and memory compared to popular 8-bit autopilot platforms, PX4 is exceptional value for money and provides substantial room for future growth.

For more information about the PX4 autopilot platform, visit the project website at http://pixhawk.ethz.ch/px4/

PX4 modules can be purchased from our manufacturing partner, 3DRobotics.

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Comments

Daniel Portillo July 29, 2012 at 4:55am

I want to know if this product is ready for production environments in airplanes. And if is necessary tuning the PID gains.
This seem a very good platform but I'm waiting to see videos and photographies of it in action.
Thanks for your work.
PX4 July 29, 2012 at 3:40am

Just because it is a recurring theme: PX4FMU has two external I2C ports which can be used both for external magnetometers and it's supported in software. So if you're worried about the integrated mag, you can just hook up the 3DR mag breakout. Great care has however been taken in the board design to shield the mag from noise, so it does perform already well with the inbuilt one. More information is here:

https://pixhawk.ethz.ch/px4/modules/px4fmu?&#interfaces
PX4 July 29, 2012 at 3:21am

Here is the link to the schematic of the production version, the wiki is updated accordingly:

https://pixhawk.ethz.ch/px4/_media/modules/px4fmu-schematic-v1.6.pdf
PX4 July 29, 2012 at 3:10am

@ Gary: working on that, we're following up closely.

@Jose: Thanks for pointing that out, that is actually a prototype schematic and that has been fixed. Uploading a new schematic now. The MPU-6000 *is* operational
Gary Hethcoat July 28, 2012 at 4:33pm

@chc2111: Thanks. That seemed to help, but still got Python errors. Installed the latest Python 2.7.3 runtime from python.org, copied it (C:\Python27) in place of /c/px4/Python27, and then the build completed successfully. Thanks to everyone who helped.

It's clear that a lot of work has gone into this, my compliments to all of you. If I get my vehicle working, I will be *gushing* with compliments :-) I'm going to go ahead and order the hardware.

Gary
chc2111 July 28, 2012 at 3:38pm

@Brain

Thanks. This did the trick, it works now

@Gary:

Get the dll from here:

http://en.sourceforge.jp/projects/sfnet_pagenumbersaver/downloads/v...

Copy it were you PATH is pointing to. I used just the windows root location and it compiled.

regards
Gary Hethcoat July 28, 2012 at 3:17pm

Getting a different error now:

Then the build terminates:

Gary
JiTTeRMaN July 28, 2012 at 1:37pm

Hi

Looking the schematic of PX4FMU , sheet 3 , i think there is a bug in MPU6000.

Pin 13 of MPU6000 not connect to 3V3 , only connect to a capacitor and not to Supply VCC.

Regards

Jose
PX4 July 28, 2012 at 1:28pm

You can download a working xxd.exe in the meantime from here:

https://pixhawk.ethz.ch/px4/_media/xxd.zip

Unzip it to C:\px4\toolchain\bin (check that arm-none-eabi-gcc is in the same directory)

It should be fine then. I'll have an updated installer soon.
Gary Hethcoat July 28, 2012 at 12:33pm

I'm getting the same error as chc2111. I did have Vim installed long ago, not sure why this would have anything to do with Vim. Still investigating...

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