V 3.1
MHV Quadcopter Workshop
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More advanced users can use MAVProxy (a command line GCS) instead:
http://tridge.github.io/MAVProxy/
MAVProxy is compatible on Linux and Windows platforms, and uses the Python framework.
An alternative option is APM Planner 2. It is based off the qGroundControl software, with APM-
specific improvements. At the time of writing it is still in beta. APM Planner 2 can run on any
Windows, Mac or Linux systems using the Qt framework. It is a GUI based ground station and has a
fairly small impact on system resources. It is available at:
http://firmware.diydrones.com/Tools/APMPlanner/
The telemetry radios can be (via the supplied cable) connected to a mobile phone or tablet running
Android 4.1 or later. Look for the
Droidplanner
app on the Google Play store.
Autopilot
We use the ArduPilotMega (APM):
https://github.com/diydrones/ardupilot
The APM mission planner includes the APM software in it. This software is being frequently updated
with bug fixes, better navigation code and more features. It is recommended to update when a new
version is released.
Note that the Pixhawk board is used for this workshop. When uploading firmware ensure the
Pixhawk version of the APM software is selected.
A note about terminology:
Pixhawk refers to the
physical board based
on the ARM chip. APM refers
to the
software
running on the board. To make things more confusing, APM also refers to the
physical boards based on the ATMEGA2560 chip.
Due to the 2 hardware boards, there are two builds of the APM software:
ATMEGA board
Pixhawk (or PX4) board
It should be emphasised that the ATMEGA and Pixhawk builds run the same APM software, minus
the different hardware drivers. The high level navigation, positioning and other features are exactly
the same.
For the purposes of this workshop, I will refer to the Pixhawk when referring to the board and APM
when referring to the software.
ESC’s
The SimonK firmware is compatible with the ESC’s used in this project.
