Hey all,
This is my first post here, I have used Ardupilot and pix-hawk 4 in both fixed wing, multi-copter configurations and I have built up a Nimbus VTOL in the past. So not a total noob but my knowledge is limited in a way that I never had to make changes to the existing firmware (until now) so please go easy on me. Also, I have a friend who is helping me out, he has some embedded firmware experience but not anywhere close to building a flight controller.
I am trying to build an F-35B model plane inspired by a few youtube creators. My progress so far has been
- Built a custom 3 Bearing Swivel Module(BSM) hardware and software using STM32 microcontroller
- Built a frame to support 4 EDFs - 1 with 3BSM, 1 at the front and 2 on the wings for roll.
- Currently, working on the electronics of the model with Pixhawk 4 and sooner than later, I will have to get my hands dirty with the firmware, Ardupilot (which I am excited to get going). I will need the help of the community to accomplish this step of the process.
Things I know about Ardupilot firmware on the Pixhawk controller for such a project:
Based on the openly available information on the internet, I think I will have to start with a Tri-copter class and add a 4th motor to the front, essentially making my setup a plus configuration quad with the yaw servo (unlike differential yaw movement in traditional quads).
In forward flight, just the rear nozzle tilts forward as if it were simply a motor tilt servo. From what I can tell, the stock tiltrotor implementation in Arduplane can almost handle this configuration, but needs one tweak. In hover, yaw needs to be mapped to a tricopter-style tilt servo (my swivel nozzle accepts a PWM input for yaw vectoring) rather than the typical differential torque setup of the quad frame type.
Can anyone point me in the right direction to add this behavior? I can try to wrap my head around the massive code base but don’t have enough experience with Ardupilot to make meaningful edits without some guidance from the community.
Thanks,