Custom integrations features for HYBRiX

General Wanted - Jobs
1

Hello,

I am Jose Luis from Quaternium, for those who do not know our project we are developing a hybrid quadrotor. It is an electric multicopter with a range extender that consists of combustion engine and an electric generator.

I think we need some developments to adapt the APM to our specific case. We use a dropix hardware with standard firmware installed with the mission planner. Than we need is integrate all channels of the range extender so this information will be available in missionplanner/tower…

I am talking for example in

  • Current at generator, RPM, engine temperature, fuel level …

We use Tower, We could also go to mission planer but we prefer to use Tower

We have 2 CAN buses in our range extender control electronics. We are planning to connect our range extender control to the pixhawk through the CAN bus.

We have a software/hardware guy that helps us eventually but he has no experience with APM/mission Planner/TOWER.

It is complex because in this there are several different projects involved.I would like some advice as to how to do this.I think if there are people familiar with this code it could be better and cheaper to talk with these people instead of trying to do it ourselves, Is that possible? Who would these people be?

Best regards
Jose Luis Cortes
Quaternium

2

Hi Jose Luis,

I think your best option is to look at our commercial support list: http://ardupilot.org/copter/docs/common-commercial-support.html

3

some of those things can be done already, for example you can monitor RPM and current with standard ArduCopter now.

As Francisco suggests, you could contact one of the ArduPilot developers to do some consulting, or your software engineer could join on the public discussion channels and start discussing the details of what you’re doing. Asking questions on gitter.im/ArduPilot/ardupilot may be a good choice to start with.
I’m working on a different approach to range extension for multicopters at the moment that uses a petrol engine to drive a lift propeller that reduces load on the electric motors.
Google Photos
I think there is likely to be some overlap in the needs of the two projects.
Cheers, Tridge

2 Likes
4

Yes, the commercial support list is very interesting!
Tridge, Nice development! Do you have videos of this tricopter flying?

5

we’ve only done one short test flight so far:

that was with quick hack where petrol motor throttle was linked to the pilot throttle stick. I’ve submitted a PR with a better approach, and we’ll fly it again next weekend (Matt Ridley, who built the copter, is away this weekend)

6

If your using a taranis why don’t you just link the throttle to the battery voltage?

Assuming your using 12s then fully charged is 50.4v.

So just use a logical switch to set the throttle to max if voltage is <50.

then have another logical switch to put the engine to idle when disarmed.

I have seen a similar setup used on a solar plane to turn of the solar panels and stop the battery overcharging.

All ardupilot would need is a charging output. So the servo goes high if the battery goes below a voltage and servo low if it goes above.

This could drive a generator throttle or switch solar panels to regulate voltage.

It could then be used for other aircraft that use alternative power sources like solar, fuel cell or generator to charge the primary battery.