Is a companion computer needed for simple delivery mission?

APSync / Companion Computers
1

Hi guys!

Newbie working on second custom drone here. First time ArduPilot’er though.

I want to execute a simple autonomous delivery mission with my drone;

  1. Navigate to a provided input GPS coordinate
  2. When at coordinate, release delivery payload with a servo command
  3. Return to home GPS coordinate.

Being a little bit confused about the role of a companion computer and seeing my Mateksys F405-HDTE flight controller only has 1MB memory, I’m wondering if the flight controller alone is enough to execute that mission, or if a companion computer is needed?

2

No need for a companion computer for that simple case. But you need to make sure servo functionality is compiled in the firmware you use for that 1M board

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3

If you are just operating a servo no problem but to @amilcarlucas point I’m not sure Package Place functionality is included on that board. For something like that you may want to consider another flight controller w/o limitations (any H7 based).

4

@dkemxr & @amilcarlucas thanks for the replies. Just checked the firmware limitation page for MatekF450-TE and it doesn’t seem as if there’s any servo limitations.

Limitations: List of Firmware Limitations by Board — Copter documentation

5

No Gripper if you planned on using that.

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6

To my understanding, that would omit the mission command MAV_CMD_DO_GRIPPER but not the MAV_CMD_DO_SET_SERVO, which takes a PWM value as input (meaning it would ‘move’ the servo).

Am I mistaken? Can’t that mission command be used as a replacement?

7

That’s what I said in the previous post. No Flight Controller is limited for simply operating a servo.