Getting started with ArduPilot contributions for GSoC Guidance for first-time ArduPilot contributor (C++)

[krisha_mehta (krisha)]

Hi everyone,

I’m Krisha, a C++ student interested in contributing to ArduPilot as a prospective Google Summer of Code participant.

I have experience with C++, Python, and basic robotics concepts, and I’m currently exploring the ArduPilot codebase and documentation. I’m particularly interested in autonomous vehicles and flight-control software.

I would really appreciate guidance on beginner-friendly areas, suitable modules, or recommended ways to start contributing to ArduPilot and understand the development workflow.

Thank you for your time and support.

[ArduDev (NS)]

Hi Krisha,

You can take this one over if you like.

I am not an official Ardu Developer but nonetheless it might a good one for you (and I won’t have any more time moving forward).

Experimental Onboard Neural Net

Hi All, The new embedded ArduPilot neural‑net library is now successfully learning XOR inside SITL. This confirms that the full forward‑pass, backprop, gradient flow, and weight‑update logic are working correctly in an embedded‑safe, fixed‑size implementation. [Screenshot from 2026-01-29 17-34-20] What’s needed next (for anyone who wants to continue the work) Weight persistence Add a mechanism to save trained weights from SITL and load them onboard during initialization. The library al…

Also I recommend switching to CLion, you can get a student copy for free:

CLion Setup for Development & Debugging

Hi, It seems I got a full CLion dev environment going, here are the steps in general: Initial IDE Setup Cloned the repo. Standard environment setup. Standard full build from command line. Copied the “compile_commands.json” over to the root level directry (this allows code indexing and navigation). Start Clion and open the project at the Ardupilot directory. At this stage it noticed it was not CMake and gave an option to open as a “Compilation database”. Select compilation database. (If it do…

Whatever you end up doing, best of luck!

[NDev]

Hi @krisha_mehta , I added some resources here to help on the starting areas, mainly the ArduPilot Developers wiki which includes topics on how to get started with Development!