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Or, if you want to move up the processor power food chain a little bit to ST Micros with PC/Tablet ground stations, you could choose http://www.librepilot.org/ / https://www.openpilot.org/

There are delevelopers taking it to the next level. They are the same ones that have got it to where it is now - like autonomous plans that find people people lost the wilderness and drop a rescue package beside them.

But maybe he is talking about a different species of developer entirely - the one that publish most of the crap found in app stores. When I think "developer", I think of a person who enjoys creating new things from code. That is the sort of developer who is driving openpilot, which is were most of the innovation is happening right now. The developer he is apparently talking about prioritises money - they are people who constantly looking to make the most money in the shortest amount of time from the least amount of code. A different animal entirely. We will need them later to find all the useful things that can be done with drones. But right now it's a struggle to make the thing work at all, and for that you need real developers.

Real developers? Sorry. That was a bad choice of words. What is a socially acceptable word for people who prefer technology to money, or indeed people. Nerds maybe? Call us what we like, were are far too busy having fun with computers to notice.

If you want it to fly, you might want this: http://www.openpilot.org/products/openpilot-coptercontrol-platform/

Yes, yes, it takes the "fun" out of building your own flying code, but your machine will be a lot more fun to play with when it's actually stable. Put whatever other board you want on it, but for your own sake, use a dedicated flight board if you want to go airborne!

... or you could just tweak a $100 OpenPilot control module.

Come now. We at NASA can't use that. It was Not Invented Here. We have to do things the hard way.

... or you could just tweak a $100 OpenPilot control module.

The Open Pilot project makes great hardware/software and it's open source. Although the current generation does not meet your need for autonomous flight, the next version will have that capability: http://www.openpilot.org/products/openpilot-revolution-platform/

I'm surprised that no one mentioned this project yet: http://www.openpilot.org/ It seems to be a mature project with a strong community. I learned about it listening to my favorite podcast ~ a year ago: FLOSS Weekly, Episode 148 ;-)

OpenPilot takes care of a lot of the control of these things. The firmware is already completely open. It is being tested in many vehicles all over the world.

The hardware is supposed to be released as open source fairly soon. As of now, they are limiting production to ensure proper testing...

http://www.openpilot.org/