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Quadcopter Drone Packs First All-Linux Autopilot
DeviceGuru writes: Erle Robotics has launched what is claimed to be the first drone to run both a Pixhawk APM autopilot and ROS directly on Linux. Over the last year Erle Robotics and 3DRobotics have collaborated on developing an open source, all-Linux BeagleBone Black-based autopilot for drones using the popular 3DR APM architecture, but without using Nuttx RTOS for the real-time bits. In addition to being used on a new 'Erle-copter' quadcopter drone, the new all-Linux 'Erle-brain' APM will ship in both a two-winged UAV and a four-wheeled robotic vehicle, due next spring.
Many drone auto-pilots already run on embedded Linux.
The AR Drone 2.0 (which is quite old already) runs on Linux 2.6.32 for instance.
The Linux OS is not running the flight controller, it has a flight controller (Arduino-based) plugged into it. Seriously, who approves this nonsense?
Squash
If a drone running Linux causes a crash of a passenger plane the whole world around newspapers would carry " Linux crashes an air disaster " as their headlines
Muchas Gracias, Señor Edward Snowden !
There are several other open source projects out there for autopilot and flight control. Why should I care that this runs Linux? What benefits does Linux bring to the table?
From what I can tell from TFA the only feature this brings to the table is that it's slow enough to require an entire ARM based board instead of the dirt cheap AVRs that are from what I can tell equally capable on the software level and are used in other platforms.
Is this just Linux for Linux sake?
It runs Linux, but is the controller code open source? I couldn't find any links to the source code and without it, whether it runs Linux or something else becomes irrelevant. If anyone finds the link, please share it.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
Us AR Drone owners are *still* waiting for Directors mode to be released for Android.
http://ardrone2.parrot.com/apps/director-mode/
So yeh, it is real old, yet I've yet to use the GPS module in it because Parrot never finished the software, and probably never will now that they've long moved onto new models.
POS, I'll never buy another Parrot product again.
The Linux OS is not running the flight controller, it has a flight controller (Arduino-based) plugged into it. Seriously, who approves this nonsense?
The flight controller is running under linux. It is just a standard linux process.
From what I've seen (crawing throught he source tree), the fire cape basically provides lots of sensors running on SPI (and maybe I2C), bus protection/voltage conversion for lots of UARTS, PWM,etc as well as maybe voltage regulators. The only part of this that is sort handled out of under linux is the use of the BBB's PRUs to handle some of the extra PWM requirements in software since the BBB doesn't really have enough in hardware for most projects and linux can't do the hard real time reliably enough to keep servos free of jitter using GPIOs.
The project is using the APM hardware abstraction layer which makes porting to different architectures "relatively" easy. APM was originally written for the Arduino but has moved on since then.
So... elevators?
And does it use systemd?
"Somebody has to do something. It's just incredibly pathetic it has to be us."
--- Jerry Garcia
I am sorry Dave, I cannot open the door because there is a driver issue with the device.
The drone got stuck in a loop and finally crashed.
From the full article, but with added bolding:
...The Linux port of APM involved compiling the Linux kernel with some options that make it “pseudo-real time,” wrote Mayoral Vilches. “It responds nicely to the higher priority threads that APM launches,” he added. “The fact that the APM autopilot runs in Linux means that we can now have flying computers with a state-of-the-art software autopilot that are easier than ever to use. The big community of Linux experts can now jump into creating practical applications with their flying computers easier, without the need of interacting with a highly complicated system such as NuttX-based autopilots.”...
Víctor Mayoral Vilches is CTO and co-founder of Erle Robotics.
After intensive development, and rebounding from the unfortunate deaths of three of their executives during a demo in September, Microsoft today announced the availability of Windows Drone 3.1 beta. Asked about the development team wearing helmets during the work day, and if it was a result of Microsoft's policy of "eating their own dog food", development lead Bindar Srinkavar said that it was for "maximum flexibility in choosing who will host the GoPro camera."
for anyone left in the WTC from the top floor to the ground floor....
Too soon?
Imagine a Beowulf cluster of these!
[For some reason, I'm hearing Flight of the Valkyries right now...]
If it weren't for deadlines, nothing would be late.