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ModeratorPermalink Reply by Chris Anderson on January 2, 2010 at 9:08am

Well, it depends on what you mean by autonomous landing. If you put ArduPilot into a loiter and the the battery low-voltage cutoff stops the motor, it will gently glide into a pretty nice landing with an EasyStar (we'd done that plenty of times). But if you want it to line up into the wind down the middle of a runway and flare at the last second, no it can't do that. No amateur-grade autopilot can.

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Permalink Reply by Xcluzif on January 2, 2010 at 11:29am

Yes I was thinking about landing in the middle of a runway... but it's nice already the capability to perform a "fail safe" land.

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Permalink Reply by Nicholas Budd on January 2, 2010 at 10:06am

Not quite yet, although I know some people are working on it.

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Permalink Reply by Xcluzif on January 2, 2010 at 11:31am

Interesting to know !

And for a take off ? I guess it's easier to do ...

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ModeratorPermalink Reply by Chris Anderson on January 2, 2010 at 12:01pm

Automatic takeoff is easy, but why bother? What's the point?

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Permalink Reply by Xcluzif on January 2, 2010 at 12:04pm

Just to make a totaly fully autonomous flight from the take off to the landing

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ModeratorPermalink Reply by Chris Anderson on January 2, 2010 at 12:10pm

Yes, but why? What's the advantage? I know it's cool, but I just can't see why you'd ever want to do that. By the time you've done your preflight setup and put the plane on the runway, you might as well just take off yourself and eliminate the risk of runway bumps and wind-related ground messups in autonomy mode.

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Permalink Reply by Xcluzif on January 2, 2010 at 12:11pm

you're right ....

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DeveloperPermalink Reply by Ryan Beall on January 2, 2010 at 12:14pm

For unsafe (slow) hand launches on heavy flying wings I use co-pilot (fly-by-wire) mode as well as rate damping.

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