Airspeed sensor (and FC) for high speed application

ArduPlane Plane 3.9
1

Hello,
I’m attempting to setup arduplane for some dynamic soaring use. Currently I’m testing with a revolution mini. I have an analog airspeed sensor ( MPXV7002DP) that I’d like to test with as well. As I stated, these items are just what I currently have. I’m very willing to replace the hardware with more capable items if I can prove that it will suit my needs. Ideally I’d need an airspeed that can get close to the 400mph mark, and need a FC with 6 outputs that is as small as possible. With all of that being said, my questions are as follows:

  1. Is there a document that shows how to connect an analog airspeed to the revo mini?
  2. If the analog airspeed won’t work, is there another option that I can test with, that preferably has a high speed range?
  3. What would be the recommended board for this application?
  4. What would be the best airspeed sensor for this application?

Thanks in advance!

2

revomini hardware page: http://ardupilot.org/plane/docs/common-openpilot-revo-mini.html

there‘s two adcs accessible on revomini:
current pin (GPIO 11)
voltage pin (GPIO 12)
either one can be traded in for connecting your analog airspeed sensor.

another option is to fundamentally rearrange the revomini‘s default ardupilot pin function mapping. by moving RCIn to PB14 it is possible to free uart6 for use as a serial port, thereby freeing flexi port‘s pins PB10/11 to be used as I2C2 instead of uart3 for connecting a digital airspeed sensor. this requires compiling a customized firmware obviously.

looking at the lineup of supported autopilot hardware, there‘s many boards that support all required periphereal hardware connections by default, the only one somewhere near the revomini‘s genuinely small footprint would be the omnibus nano f4v6 however. in addition to what the revomini offers, it has an onboard osd chip, more uarts and an external I2C port accessible by default. it doesn‘t have more adc pins accessible though, and it supports onboard flash block-type logging only, just like the revomini does.

afaik there‘s no other boards with a compareably small footprint, and the small size comes at the cost of certain hardware / connectivity limitations.

3

Thanks for the reply. I tried connecting the airspeed to the voltage pin and setting the pin to both 11 and 12 with no luck. The airspeed never displayed on the GCS. There isn’t much I’ve changed, so I’m not sure what else I’m supposed to do aside from set the pin and type.

I’m still interested in what sensors are available for a high speed application. Most don’t seem to list the speeds specs.