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ArduPilot

ArduPilot

Overview

ArduPilot is an open source on-board flight-controller firmware. As the name suggest, it started out as a sketch on an Arduino board. The name changed to APM temporarily after they moved to Arduino Mega (ArduPilotMega/APM), but now it's back to ArduPilot. APM

It runs on micro-controller based Pixhawk family of flight controllers as well as various Linux single board computer based units.

ArduPilot supports many types of frames such as multi-rotor, fixed wing airplanes, helicopters, VTOL, rovers, boats and submarines, and there are variants of the firmware supporting these frames. i.e. ArduPilot "Copter" (a.k.a. ArduCopter) firmware supports both multicopters and single-rotor helicopters, while ArduPilot "Plane" (a.k.a. ArduPlane) supports both fixed wing airplanes as well as QuadPlane VTOL vehicles.

The firmware is released under GPLv3.

It was initially built as an application on top of the PX4 Native Stack firmware, although the dependencies are being reduced.

This is only the part that runs on the on-board flight controller. You also need compatible Ground Control Software/Station (GCS) software in order to install, configure, tune and operate your drone.

History

Linux Support

  • Since 2015
  • PXF、PXFmini、ErleBrain、ErleBrain2、NAVIO、NAVIO2, BBBMini, SnapDragonFlight
  • Parrot Bebop

Helicopter

Configuration Guides