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3D Robotics

Traditional helicopters now supported by ArduCopter2, too!

Posted by Chris Anderson on June 20, 2011 at 6:30pm

3689413706?profile=originalCheck out the firmware loading screen from the latest Mission Planner (1.013). Have you ever seen anything more beautiful??

 

Yes, APM is the first autopilot in history to support every kind of flying machine out there! (We already covered lighter-than-air with Blimpduino). Thanks to the great work of team leader Randy Mackay, the Trex 450 (traditional heli) version of ArduCopter is now fully compatible with ArduCopter 2, which means 2-way MAVLink and all the other mission planning goodness.

 

Randy will be updating the Traditional Heli manual soon with the ArduCopter2 details. One thing he discovered is that the Trex 450 flies a lot better with APM if you go flybarless. A Guai 450 flybarless head can be found for as little as $24.

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Comments

  • T3
    William Premerlani June 22, 2011 at 2:53pm
    Hi Chris,

    Does your list of every kind of flying machine include the following?

    1. Paraplane
    2. X-wing
    3. Harrier
    4. VTOL
    5. Launch from a high altitude balloon

    You could claim that they are all airplanes, but each has particular technical opportunities and challenges. I would be interested to hear what your experience with them has been. I get inquiries from time to time to apply the UAVDevBoard in those areas.

    Best regards,
    Bill

    Best regards,
    Bill
  • Developer
    Pete Hollands June 22, 2011 at 2:15pm
    http://www.rocketelectronics.com/pages/Part-4.html
  • T3
    William Premerlani June 22, 2011 at 2:03pm

    Hi Chris,

    The APM is a remarkable autopilot, I am amazed at the progress the team has made in the past few years. Very nice.

    You mention: "Yes, APM is the first autopilot in history to support every kind of flying machine out there!"

    Does that include model rockets?

    Check out the RockeTiltometer, a spinoff of the UAV DevBoard, developed by Frank Hermes with my help. It recently won the High Power Rocketry Technology Achievement Award.

    Best regards,

    Bill

     

     

  • 3D Robotics
    Chris Anderson June 21, 2011 at 8:18pm
    Chris Appleton: "autopilot" means capable of fully autonomous multiple waypoint missions.
  • Chris Appleton June 21, 2011 at 6:40pm
    Jani Hirvinen:
    As far as I can tell (downloaded their latest Windows binary installer) they also support helis, tons of multis, and fixed wings all from the same firmware and configuration utility.

    Chris Anderson:
    I guess that depends on the definition of autopilot. But I've seen videos of their CopterControl doing more than just multicopter so I at least know it does more than that.
  • Andrew Whipple June 21, 2011 at 6:16pm
    yes, thanks!
  • 3D Robotics
    Chris Anderson June 21, 2011 at 3:00pm
    Andrew: do you mean the Mission Planner? It's in dot.Net. The code is here:
    http://code.google.com/p/ardupilot-mega/source/browse/#svn%2FTools%...
  • Andrew Whipple June 21, 2011 at 2:26pm
    What language is the program written in, Python? I wish to do a little customization by myself.
  • Jonathan Lussier June 21, 2011 at 9:51am

    PS

    good work!

  • Jonathan Lussier June 21, 2011 at 9:51am
    Hi guys, any planning for support of the gress copters?  (gressaero.com)?
This reply was deleted.