Hi, dear Diydrones members, today I’m happy to demo yet another raspberry based Ardupilot compatible flight controller expansinon board design.

 

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Features:

  • Pixhawk compatible Power/GPS module interface
  • Integrated ublox m8n GNSS module
  • CSI camera ribbon compatible PCB profile
  • PX4IO forked project for dedicated PWM I/O with STM32 MCU
  • Emlid™ Navio+ inspired solution for ardupilot HAL
  • FULLY open source software and HARDWARE

 

Goals:

  • Single package for FPV solution
  • Yocto distro with minimum firmware footprint
  • Deliver in May, 2015

 

Why we did this because we believe in open sourced project will be a great tool to learn from the best, and to be even better. We are young Chinese engineers, please no stereotype.

 

I’ve been assist @zhangkaiqi working on this project for a while now. We had a breadboard wiring prototype flying happily now and we want to push this endeavor a litter further. As earlier Navio+ test reports from Emlid shows that PWM consumed about 20% of RPI B+’s cpu time, we want to test another solution by putting PX4IO (pixhawk’s co-processor part) on RPi.And we are inspired by @PatrickDuffy’s (Diydrones member, not twitter) FPV solution on Rpi with ubnt™, so we want to build a flight controller has all the good features we can get from a Rpi, so we combined them together.

Today we have the first PCB design sign-offed to the fab, and later this week hope to have a smoking test (first time power on a PCBA). We hope people with talent to join us with software design process and we hopefully to send some samples to volunteered engineers, testers and early bird costumers.

 

We promise to open source all project files, including Eagle Cad schematic/layouts, after we have the first batch PCBA running complete. We need initial product generate some revenue to support out later developments.

 

I’ll update this thread for the project, please commit for your ideas and feature request.

Thanks for people who contributed to this community made this possible. 

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Comments

  • cool that should do it. If I need i can set all 9 - 24 channels to 50hz and even the cheap servos will be happy.

    Count me in for developer order when it becomes available.

    Thanks,

    Regards

  • http://www.adafruit.com/datasheets/PCA9685.pdf

    here is the datasheet for the adafruit PCA9685 board.

    Afaik you set all channels to same frequency, so the aux outputs 9-24 should be able to be set to 50hz.

    Compatability with PI Zero is something we are working on, probably make an adapter initially and a PCB revision later.

  • how will it be compatible with pi zero. Will they modify the design to include appropriate extra holes in the pcb to match the mounting holes on pi zero, otherwise it will be just loose.

    I couldn't find much about frequency from data sheet. Can we pick and choose which ports output 50-60hz pwm. Its ok if its done on the 9-24 ports. 

  • Developer

    I have a raspilot 1.1 as well and hope the project does not get stalled.

    Count me in for a Rpi zero compatible Pilot Board! Hurray when it becomes available :)

  • Hi @Pritam and @Killerovsky

    I lost contact with sciencebeer too, the Pilot board came about as i wished to have a CAN interface on board.

    The Pilot Board will be available for developers @ 99 Euros/$.

    The Price is mainly due to BOM, it is very hard to compete with Chinese prices.

    It is compatible with pi zero. 

    the PWM outputs 9-24 are using the same Chip (PCA9685) as navio+

    8 PWM channels out of the STM32F103 - same as Rapilot.

    high drive (SN74LVC8T245) on all 24 PWM channels.
    Auvidea have other products in development;

    http://diydrones.com/profiles/blog/show?id=705844%3ABlogPost%3A2128...

    http://www.auvidea.eu/index.php/2015-11-08-08-01-27/can-centric/power

    if you are interested in getting one of the first development boards email me ds@auvidea.com

  • Or the other option is that we all jump on to the Pilot project. But there hasn't been much discussion about final pricing which will definitely be higher than raspilot. How high is the question? Plus the only problem that I have with raspilot v1.1 is "all pwm outputs are on 490Hz". Makes it very difficult to use cheap fpv servo gimbals with raspicam. If PiLot has 50Hz ouput on aux ports that will be great. 

  • @killerovsky

    I have one and its flying well. One of the original authors of raspilot @sciencebeer has gone dark. He was the active one atleast on firmware side. He hasn't been able to reply to any of my mails. May be going through something more important in life or he has just abandoned the project.

    the other author @jerry responds and he is planning on doing a new batch. I will jump in on the firmware side of it to keep it alive. I am not sure about who was maintaining raspilot.io. I will talk to Jerry and see if the original ordering page can come back online or we need to put something else in place.

  • Hi  @David Skipper

    Ok, but as far as I understood this is 3rd party "fork" from the original RasPilot. And I'm afraid that it will be pricey for hobby projects ("just intuition after reading words "pro/professional" in the product description). 

    So, my question remains the same - is original RasPilot project alive? Current status? Any plans about RPi Zero?

  • HI @ Killerovsky

    Here is a discussion regarding an improved board.

    https://groups.google.com/d/msg/drones-discuss/a6sZefLe-ds/IOoATk8l...

    First development boards are being made next week.

    ds@auvidea.com

  • Any news/updates about project? Is it still alive (why "Order" page become hidden on raspilot.io website)? Any plans to make smaller version for Rpi Zero?

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