In a previous post, I discussed our mainboard approach for ArduPilot Mega. In this post, I'd like to share our thinking about the expansion boards ("shields", in Arduino-speak).
As you can see in the above diagram, the core ArduPilot Mega will consist of two layers, just like the current ArduPilot. The core autopilot board will remain constant, while the IMU board will come out in versions, improving as sensor technology evolves. But there is also the option to add a third layer, which is an expansion board for additional functionality.
We will break out as many I/O (analog and digital) pins as possible to the expansion board, along with at least two serial ports. Some of the boards, such as the DIY sensor board, will be dual voltage.
Some of the boards proposed above may be ones for which there would be enough demand that we'd make and sell them ourselves. Others may be created by the community. ArduPilot is an open standard, like the rest of Arduino, so we'd like to encourage people to come up with their own shields, just as the community has done with the core Arduino boards.
So what do you think? Have we missed any obvious expansion board candidates? Any design decisions we should be making with the core ArduPilot Mega board or IMU to allow for more expansion options? (Remember, size is at a premium, so suggestions that require bigger or more expensive mainboards tend not to carry the day)
I have found a web page with and small imu pcb (GPL ) with all sensors connected by the SPI bus for free download: http://www.akaflieg.hs-bremen.de/trac/akaflieg/wiki/airborne/hw/aut... http://www.akaflieg.hs-bremen.de/trac/akaflieg/wiki/airborne/hw/qc
They have made a mcu pcb with the LPC2148 (ARM7) and a sensor pcb.
The sensor pcb can use different rate sensors (ADXRS610, LIYS300AL,MLX90609) on small rate sensor pcbs. I think it is a good idea to use small rate sensor pcbs to. For glider the cheap LIYS300AL can be used and for helicopter and motor aircrafts the vibration resistant rate sensors ADXRS610 and MLX90609.
Question has someone used the ADX500 rate sensor ? It seems that this sensor is also vibration resistant because the internal frequency is over 20 kHz. It will also a good idea to look for the MXR9500. This sensors acceleration is very vibration resistant.
Jawahar, autonomous takeoff and landings is something people like thinking about more than they actually end up doing. We don't see much demand for it, so if people want that they can design their own around our open standard.
bGatti, that is a totally different architecture and path than ArduPilot has been on. It would involve throwing out man-years of work and initiating man years of additional work. This is not a "how would you re-conceive ArduPilot from scratch" exercise; we were simply soliciting input on expansion board designs within the current architecture.
The Arduino derivative you mention that has an inbuilt USB port only has a single serial port. After discussions with the Arduino team, we rejected it on those grounds.
But ArduPilot is an open source project. If you don't like our architecture, we encourage you to create your own.
Mike, every layer breaks out all the pins from the previous layer, so the user wants to just create a ribbon cable to connect another board remotely rather than solder on female headers to stack them, that's fine. But I'm not sure what we would do differently to the design to facilitate this.
I actually agree with this, Dr Mike Black. But one must think of the clutter caused by the IDE-like cables. Plus, you'd probably need to double the number of headers on the board in order to provide stackability.
Jordi reminds me that it's a bad idea to have the Xbee transmitters right onto of the autopilot (RF interference) so sadly we may have to nix that one. Also the magnetometer for the heli board may be external, to avoid magnetic interference.
Comments
anyone have use rpm sensor to apm 2.5? what rpm sensor do u use and how about to activate and send the data via telemetry?
http://www.akaflieg.hs-bremen.de/trac/akaflieg/wiki/airborne/hw/aut...
http://www.akaflieg.hs-bremen.de/trac/akaflieg/wiki/airborne/hw/qc
They have made a mcu pcb with the LPC2148 (ARM7) and a sensor pcb.
The sensor pcb can use different rate sensors (ADXRS610, LIYS300AL,MLX90609) on small rate sensor pcbs. I think it is a good idea to use small rate sensor pcbs to. For glider the cheap LIYS300AL can be used and for helicopter and motor aircrafts the vibration resistant rate sensors ADXRS610 and MLX90609.
Question has someone used the ADX500 rate sensor ? It seems that this sensor is also vibration resistant because the internal frequency is over 20 kHz. It will also a good idea to look for the MXR9500. This sensors acceleration is very vibration resistant.
The Arduino derivative you mention that has an inbuilt USB port only has a single serial port. After discussions with the Arduino team, we rejected it on those grounds.
But ArduPilot is an open source project. If you don't like our architecture, we encourage you to create your own.
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