It was interesting many years ago and in any case Ardupilot won’t run on it.
These will ArduRover Stable
No, you also need a Flight Controller. The RPi is the Companion Computer.
IOW, you need a Flight Controller.
So what does the companion computer do then? Does a part of ArduPilot run on it? Or is it strictly for things like having a video feed? If so, does it intercept the ArduPilot messages and then pass them on to the flight controller?
Thanks so much for the help!
Seems like BeagleBone Blue is my favorite option from the list - I recall seeing the list now.
Thank you for the information!
I’d caution you against the Beaglebone Blue - it can be exceedingly difficult to set up and isn’t quite as fully featured as you might think. ArduPilot takes a large portion of its CPU time, making companion processes sluggish.
I think you should watch some videos on the subject first. it will give you a general idea for whats required
Very good information, thanks
So I decided on a Matek 405 HDTE 3-12S, and I also got a FrSky R-XSR receiver (the new version that you can un-invert). Now I just need to dig for the part that goes on the laptop side (is it only through a controller?), and/or try to use one of the WiFi modules listed here: Telemetry (landing page) — Rover documentation
If your not going far the wifi modules are ideal for rovers.
I use ESP8266 radios and SiK radios. The former are cheap and good to ~100m max.
What Transmitter do you have for that R-XSR?
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Good to know - I just ordered an ESP8266 from Amazon. I do not have a transmitter for the R-XSR. I do have 2 or three transmitters, but I may have hacked them so I could have a cool joystick for another project. It may be possible to resurrect one of them from the dead, but I haven’t inspected them recently.
For the purpose of a science fair project, we can limit our mission to WiFi range - that will also keep costs down, but after the grade, we can still use the hardware for other cool projects.
Might be worth skipping the FrSky RX/TX hardware in favor of ExpressLRS. It’s generally cheaper and has proven rather easy to set up with excellent range and live telemetry.
There’s nothing “wrong” with the R-XSR, per se, but FrSky hardware is notoriously painful to ensure matching firmware and can sometimes be frustrating when setting up telemetry - I am in the process of transitioning away from it as a result.
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“Frustrating when setting up telemetry” You’re being kind. I’m microseconds from dumping FrSky here, for all the reasons. End of rant.
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I’ve had a great deal of success with it (FrSky) for several years now, but I’m tiring quickly of continuing frustrations. ExpressLRS has really impressed me as a replacement.
So, what’s the plan to use the R-XSR if you don’t have a Transmitter to bind with it?
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That is good to know, thanks!
Hi! I created a tutorial for Hacking 4 Oceans @ UCSD to help people starting with Arduboat. It covers everything from the hardware to the software. Hope this helps!
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Great link, and cool project. Hey - we plan to use two 12V 1.5A DC motors to drive this thing in “sled” mode (we plan to use two attwood V500 bilge pump motors). What kind of driver do we need? Is there a driver built in to the Matek 405 HDTE 3-12S? I thought there was something, but the documentation I could find on the Matek was limited (the matek website was down, so all I could find was a top-level getting started guide). The quick start guide showed an ESC controller (it was one ESC that controller 2 quad copter motors). I have driven these motors with an H-bridge and PWM signal long ago, so I don’t know if an ESC would do the same thing.
Thanks
i dont know if your matek board has something built in (i guess not). anyway you could use h-bridge and pwm for example like this guy did (its quite a good summary) : GitHub - jazzl0ver/ardupilot-rover-l298n: How to setup Ardupilot based Rover with L298N motor driver to control with reverse simple DC brushed motors
we used L298n (which are really bad, more heater than driver, but cost close to nothing) on a similar setup like that 2 years ago on a “testboat” (piece of styropor)
worked quite well
they are also used in this thread: Radiolink Pixhawk, ArduRover and L298N H Bridge
greetings
Brushed ESCs are not that expensive, they will be much more reliable than H bridge drivers especially for high continuous loads.