Aeroquad and ArduPilot - More Research

El aeroquad usa un arduino duemilanove o un arduino mega CON un IMU 5DOF aparte.
PERO ese IMU ya no lo venden asi que recomiendan Oilpan que es el imu de arducopter.
Asi que efectivamente el ardupilot y el aeroquad son bastante similares "hardware speaking".
El ardupilot es simplemente un arduino mega + oilpan (IMU, la placa azul de arriba)
This is how i understand it so far.

Francisco

Is the Aeroquad using the ArduPilot?

I've kept reading information about Aeroquad but I'm still not sure if the Aeroquad uses the ArduPilot. But if it does then it seems like a great option.

Omar

Aeroquad build instructions and other information

Encontre las instrucciones para construir el Aeroquad: http://code.google.com/p/aeroquad/source/browse/trunk/Documentation/Tutorial/AeroQuad%20Manual.pdf

Esto elimina una de las preocupaciones que Omar tenia sobre la plataforma.

Fracisco

ArduPilot thoughts

Hey everyone,

I read up a bit on the ArduPilot as planned and I have a few thoughts. Frankly I would like to spend a bit longer before giving a full opinion, as the amount of info available to read is staggering, yet its hard to find exactly the information we need. However, this is my preliminary opinion, and if any of you have read or skimmed over it, and disagree, by all means correct me. The ArduPilot definitely has potential to support a quadcopter, but I'm afraid it has too much potential. As in, there is actually very little done for us.

For starters, the ArduPilot is "divided" into two projects. The ArduPilot, and the ArduPilot Mega. As seen here though, only one of them (ArduPilot Mega) is apt for a quad copter (at least according to the people in charge, so we should trust them :P) http://diydrones.com/notes/ArduPilot (scroll to the bottom).

The ArduPilot Mega seems to still be in development. Though it says so in the home page, this information (on the homepage) seems to be a but out of date, but regardless, I'd honestly have to browse the code base further to get a better feel of how far in development it is. Over all, what does worry me significantly, is that I couldn't find much documentation supporting specifically the use of board/kit in use of a quad copter. Again, I'd have to further browse the code base/site to see, but from what I've searched I haven't found any diagrams, recommendations, or samples of how to set it up physically to a quad copter. This could work as a great disadvantage, unless the professor actually prefers us to do this that way. In general, to me it seems like this kit/project is more aimed at those who have some RC experience, that already know a bit about aerospace and the science/physics behind it, where you may already have a frame and a model set in mind, and you are just looking for something to control said frame/model.

My biggest worry is that there doesn't seem to be someone who has fully documented the process of mounting a quad, which its probably too complicated for us to do from scratch. That is my biggest worry. But honestly I haven't read enough, so I may be wrong. Also, as carlos mentioned, w could use it for other dines, so if we want to do another kind of drone, then we could

Preliminary Verdict: I'll have to browse further to get the complete opinion, but right now, it seems to me, like this kit does not fit well with us.

Regards,

Omar Ferrer