A small compilation of autopilots and their assoc. FC

[Mullet]

I realize I'm asking this in a forum that is focused on AutoQuad as a platform (I do have an M4 on the way for my first nano quad). But I figured I'd get opinions anyway from those who have come before me and have had experience with different FCs. What are the different autopilots and their hardware/firmware options? What are their specialties? ie racing, fpv, acrobatics, missions, gps waypoints, etc. What's the best / worst? It seems AutoQuad is in a similar vein to AeroQuad and APM with its feature richness. The M4 is interesting because of scalability, but if trying to use it just for tricks (acro) it seems it's overkill vs. a $25 MultiWii FC. The BrainFPV looks interesting for its size and the built-in OSD. I'm trying to compile a nice list of what is out there (and what the FC is meant to do), so I can conduct even further research. It seems there are so many options to choose from, which is great, but also daunting.

This is what I have so far.

Platform -- Ground Control Software -- FC hardware

AutoQuad -- uses modified qgroundcontrol, any others? -- AutoQuad M4, AutoQuad6
AeroQuad -- not sure of what ground control software -- AeroQuad 32
APM (Ardupilot) -- qgroundcontrol or Mission Planner -- APM 2.6, PX4, PixHawk(or RCTimer FixHawk, RTFHawk 2.4.5), Hobby King APM based controller(s), and also ErleCopter (Linux based APM)
Brain FPV (Based on Tau Labs) -- not sure of ground control software -- BrainFPV
DJI -- DJI ground control? -- DJI Naza (Team Black Sheep)
MultiWii (or MegaPirate) -- not sure of what ground control software -- Naze32 (baseflight), Flip 32, Afroflight 32, Crius, MultiWii Pro, the list goes on...
OpenPilot -- OpenPilot ground control -- CC3D


I'm sure I'm missing a bunch and might have some wrong info... thoughts?

[kinderkram]

Hi Mullet, yes you missed a lot. And you´re asking a lot. A complete write up of the Multirotor history would make its own book project.

For an acrobatic or fun craft I´d take MultiWii (MWC), Open Pilot CC3D or a KK2 (KK akA KapteinKuk btw. is one of the OGs of MRs)
You listed almost all open source MR projects except for DJI, the only China based company (not a project at all) in your list. They use proprietary hardware and software, encrypted and hidden from the user.

APM is a former merge of AeroQuad and Ardupilot:
http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/ann ... copter-the
AeroQuad is also one of the OGs, they later decided to maintain their own hardware & firmware instead of following the route of DIYDrones/3D Robotics.
The former APM firmware was further developed by the ArduPirates, who then maintained the APMNG code, Later the fw was used by the MegaPirates. Pixhawk is a project by the ETH Zurich, Switzerland - they are also the inventors of the MAVlink protocol and the QGC ground control.

TAULABS is a project by former Openpilot developers who left the OP project in a quarrel. Besides BrainFPV (comparable to OP CC3D) there´s also the Quanton FC (comparable to OP Revo).

If you dig a bit deeper into MR history you will find many of the AutoQuad team members formerly involved in other projects like KK, MWC, APM...

Here´s a great collection and write up by Jim aka jesolins: http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1097355 and http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1157997

Prepare to spend a week at least with reading all that stuff.

Norbert

[Mullet]

Thanks Norbert for all the info. Yeah I've been doing way too much reading lately of all this multi-rotor stuff. My head is spinning, but it's gradually sinking in.

We can't forget Papparazzi. I came upon that project when looking for nano sized autopilots to compare to the M4. I haven't heard of Quanton FC yet though.