POSTS BY DRONE MODEL
New Pixhawk Flight Controllers and HereLink GCS
November 7, 2018 in DIY
For us that build our own UAVs some interesting new hardware coming from ProfiCNC
Philip Rowse talks about the new Pixhawk cubes and the Herelink Controller and Air unit, an android based ground control station for command, control, telemetry and video.
Yellow cube - F7 processor
Orange cube - H7 processor (double speed of F7)
Blue cube - like the black but made in the USA
Purple cube - low cost version without IMU damping
Drone Driver 30
Drone Driver
@Spitfire76
I am keenly aware of the efforts to improve open source code flight controllers (hardware) and embedded code to control them (firmware). In fact I am a BIG fan of the H520 and 3DR collaboration in the government contractor construction marketplace. So here is a weblink that will hopefully interest any of you so inclined to follow that route to become involved with learning how to build/modify/link and download your own open source software build onto a simulator. I have no financial involvement nor benefits to this program but do believe that it will help anyone interested get started in understanding how to do so.
https://www.udemy.com/drone-programming-primer-for-software-development/?couponCode=ARDUFORUM
and here is the Ardupilot forum entry which discusses his course and mentions a couple of others that will help you get started.
https://discuss.ardupilot.org/t/drone-programming-course/31415/45
Interested parties might also be aware that there seems to be a potential IMU issue in the version of FC that Yuneec is using in their H520 open source flight controller and the Ardupilot forum plus this Yuneec Pilots forum might be worthwhile to look into for additional information. Seems like several have fallen from the sky and that Yuneec is accepting the crashed aircraft in return for replacement with brand new ones so they can look into the hardware problem.
Open source is the only way that our drone community will become independent from DJI unless they make all of their aircraft into a similar version of the Mavic Enterprise. But then we will still be beholding to DJI for everything oriented in flying their birds. It is a monopoly at this point with no end in sight!
Also for anyone following this direction here is the latest Sky Viper drone which is powered by Ardupilot and would serve as an excellent "testbed" for your code modifications.
@Drone Driver glad you also appreciate open source. I have mainly used Ardupilot or rather ArduCopter on my drones and don't have any experience with the PX4 stack but know about it being used by some drone companies like Yuneec. I also agree with you that the SkyViper is a great platform to experiment with especially for those that don't won't to build their own UAVs.
My latest build is again using ArduCopter but on a HolyBro Kakute F7 flight controller instead of a Pixhawk. As you may know ArduPilot is dropping Nuttx as its underlying real time operating system in favor of Chibios which has made it possible to run on hardware that was typically designed for racing drones. I first tested with it with the Betaflight stack but then moved to ArduCopter 3.6.1 and it seems to work really well. These types of flight controller are much cheaper, around $50, compared with the Pixhawk hardware which is over $200.
Edited November 11, 2018 by Spitfire76
Av8Chuck 546
Av8Chuck
One of the things that I think has held back the success of Px4/Ardupilot is the open source hardware. It's not necessary for the hardware to be open source and ever since 3DR abandoned manufacturing the PixHawk there have been very few supply chains outside of China to supply controllers.
Why would anyone think that controllers manufactured in China be any better than the crap that comes from DJI? DJI is floundering trying to sort out all the firmware issues with batteries, camera's, gimbals, etc.. Open source has such a great opportunity but they seemed to be content with the DIY community.
Thats not going to be competitive in the commercial market.
Another video with more information on the new flight controllers from the makers of the Pixhawk 2.1. It looks like they are dropping the Pixhawk name in favor of the "Cube". The interesting thing here is the Blue Cube for those that don't trust the ones built in China as its entirely built in the USA but of course costing about twice as much.