If you don’t know already, SITL drones are a very powerful tool in the drone development space. Basically they are simulated drones that run right on your computer. A basic SITL instance can be spun up in both ArduPilot and PX4, and provide robust testing capabilities right out of the box. However, some drone applications…
In the ArduPilot and PX4 worlds, testing new code on a real drone would be dangerous. What if something goes wrong while the drone is 50ft in the sky? What if a new bug makes Buster the drone nosedive into your next-door neighbor’s dog? That is where sitl comes into play. SITL stands for software-in-the-loop….
If you want to build a gesture control drone, but don’t know where to start, you’re in the right place. See, you don’t want to reinvent the wheel right? What you want to do is innovate with a new and exciting drone vision project. Let’s not reinvent the wheel. Here is your to-do list: Build…
Building a drone that can be controlled with computer vision may sound difficult, but with the right knowledge it is much easier than you would initially suspect. Here is all you need to build an opencv drone. Let’s take a look at the high level architecture of a drone that could accomplish this task. Pitfalls…
So you’ve come here to get a better understand of what MAVProxy is. In a nutshell, MAVProxy is a lightweight ground control station, where the drone/vehicle can be controlled through a simple command line interface. No GUI needed. A typical GCS like MissionPlanner or QGroundControl let’s you do basic things, like: Change flight modes Monitor…
The open source drone movement has a few powerhouse software platforms. At the top of the mountain are ArduPilot and PX4. So what is the difference between the two, who wins in the ArduPilot vs PX4 matchup? Well really, it depends on what you want to optimize for. Let’s start with some history first. History…
What is a companion computer? While they are a very important element of a drone build, they are by no means required. Why is this? Companion computers only give you the capability of designing higher level drone applications. They don’t actually directly control any of the onboard drone hardware. The board that is responsible for…
So what is a flight controller you ask? You’ve come to the right place. Think of the flight controller as the brains of the drone. All of the drone’s hardware will plug into the flight controller, including the motors/escs, gps, compass, lidar, rc receiver, telemetry etc. With all the drone’s hardware plugged into this central…
With the advent of the Raspberry Pi Pico microcontroller in early 2021, it was only a matter of time before Pi Pico Drone projects surfaced. Sure, we’ve seen larger raspberry pi drones before, but the micro form factor would be a new invention. But first, what is the Raspberry Pi Pico, and how is it different…
The Navio2 shield can make any raspberry pi into a flyable drone. It was the first of its kind, starting out under the name Navio+, then later releasing the second version Navio2. Emlid is the company behind the Navio2 shield, and they carved out quite a niche which served as the foundation of their business. While…