Is mission planner a part of Arducopter or are they separate? Correct me if I am wrong but Ardupilot is used to download the proper firmware into a controller but mission planner sets the controller paerameters? I see that a raspberry pi can be used to control a mission like start, move to point A, and then land. Can mission planner do the same thing? Do I need a Pi to program a mission? As you can see I am a beginner here and probably am not asking the right questions.
If I install a F7??? controller and use Ardupilot, can I then use the same hardware configuration if I want to set up BetaFlight or Inav? I would like to be able to change between Arducopter and Betaflight and inave if possible.
Please don’t just repost the same questions over and over. As Dave already mentioned, to answer them in any detail would just be regurgitating existing documentation. Here are some YouTube channels that might help if the docs have been confusing.
Ardupilot is flight control software as is Betaflight and iNav. Mission Planner is a Ground Control and configuration program like Betaflight or iNav Configurator but with much more capability that Ardupilot allows.
You don’t need a companion Computer to configure or run an Auto Mission.
Many Flight Controllers will run Ardupilot, Betaflight and iNav.
“F7” is not the latest technology and will have limitations as has been suggested already.
Buy an H743 based Flight Controller and run whatever Flight Control software you want.
Somebody writes different firmware for each controller. This firmware implements the PID algorithm for example. However, each controller needs different firmware.
Using Ardupilot, i can select and download the proper firmware for the selected controller. However, the controller needs to have certain parameters possibly adjusted, like the PID parameters.
Mission planner provides the means to adjust the PID parameters. ArduPilot does not.
Mission planner allows an operator to plan a route for the drone to fly. Since mission planner shows views of the ground where the drone is to fly, mission planner must be connected to the Internet for the ground view.
Mission planner then sends the proper locations and times to the controller for execution.
Is this all sort of correct?
Final question for this post.
When I search for a FLYSKY - fs-i6s transmitter it seems to be supplied with a relatively large PWM receiver. I think I can also use a smaller FS A8S receiver that uses the sbus and requires only one data wire to the controller. So, the smaller FS A8S would be a better choice, yes?
In a convoluted way I suppose. Ardupilot is the firmware running on the Flight Controller. So saying that Ardupilot does not have a means of adjusting the PID parameters, and there are many more parameters than just PID, makes no sense. But yes, Mission Planner gives you the means to adjust the parameters.
Mission Planner can send commands to the Flight Controller to control the craft but an Auto Mission runs on it’s own on the Flight Controller. The Mission is planned and uploaded to the Flight Controller and it will then run autonomously. The device running MP can be connected to the internet to plan the mission or you can Prefetch and cache the map for later use where there is no internet. This is right out of the Planning a Mission Wiki if you read it.
I would say anything other than Flysky would be a better choice but up to you. There is a Hardware>Radios thread, post in there for a better answer.