Introducing OpenPilot
Introducing OpenPilot - Open Source UAV Platform
OpenPilot is a next generation Free Software autopilot for small UAVs, including multi-rotor craft, helicopters as well as fixed wing aircraft. It aims to takes the best features of all current enthusiast autopilot systems and combines them into a simple easy to use package. Simplicity does not come with any compromises either, with no hard-coded settings, a complete flight plan scripting language and other next-generation features, OpenPilot is planned to be an extremely capable UAV platform.
Key Features:
- Fully Open Source Free Software
- Custom built powerful hardware using High Density STM32
- 8 RC Channel Inputs for PPM (No converter needed)
- 8 Servo Outputs using standard servo connectors
- I2C, CAN & PWM ESC Support
- Micro SDCard for settings and logging
- State of the art AHRS
- Implements the open UAVTalk Protocol for GCS compatibility
- Cross Platform Ground Control Station & Set-up tools
- Cross Platform Firmware Development
OpenPilot is a Open Source community project and there are many ways you can get involved.
For developers the project has two sub-projects, you can get involved in the Flight Software Development which is the embedded firmware written in C or with the Ground Control Software Development which is written in C++ using the Qt application framework.
Links:
IRC:
There's always developers in the OpenPilot IRC channel which is #openpilot on freenode.
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Moderator Comment by Gary Mortimer on February 15, 2010 at 1:55am -
Well done that's an awful lot of work put in already, really want to hear the pod now!
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Comment by passunca on February 15, 2010 at 7:15am -
Well I have not heard the podcast yet, maybe my question is already answered in there. anyway here it goes...
Does it run some kind of OS like RTOS on OpenPilot?
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Comment by hypergolic on February 15, 2010 at 8:05am -
Yes it runs FreeRTOS and they have a abstraction layer on top of that called PiOS.
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Comment by David Ankers on February 15, 2010 at 12:13pm -
Yes, exactly. PiOS is the abstraction layer between the hardware and the OpenPilot code. We use FreeRTOS as well as a task scheduler.
I really don't like the term OS even though we use it in PiOS; FreeRTOS and PiOS are both very efficient and the hardware access code would have to be written anyway, we just make more modular. Likewise for FreeRTOS, we would need some kind of scheduler anyway so why not leverage an excellent and well proven Open Source project like FreeRTOS.
PiOS can also be built without FreeRTOS as we use PiOS on the AHRS which we need to only perform a couple of tasks but to do them very quickly, in this situation so we don't want the context switching overhead of a RTOS. This is the beauty of a design with a separate AHRS Vs a single board; we can leverage both processors extremely well and we avoid the context switching overhead.
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Comment by hypergolic on February 15, 2010 at 2:04pm
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I have to say I am very excited about this project. I am looking forward to getting the hardware and trying it out. I also hope to be able to contribute at some point in the future.
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Moderator Comment by Alex on February 16, 2010 at 1:31am -
from what I have seen/ heard seems pretty exciting!
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Comment by passunca on February 16, 2010 at 4:14am
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I am very exited with project. What you guys did is amazing.
Thumbs up Aussies!!
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