Hi all,
I’m building a solar VTOL plane (Heewing T1 Ranger VTOL) and aiming for multi-day autonomous flight. The idea is to fly in loops between multiple coordinates. When the battery runs low, the plane should land in a predefined field, wait to recharge, and then resume flight.
Concept
My current plan is to use a companion computer (e.g., Raspberry Pi) to:
- Control arming/disarming
- Handle VTOL takeoff/landing
- Navigate between points (likely via GUIDED mode?)
- Monitor battery and trigger landing/restart logic
I don’t want to fly a fixed AUTO mission with a squeezed landing interruption. Instead, the CC should dynamically decide where to go next.
Background
I’m an engineering student with strong FPV and Python experience, but I’m a bit overwhelmed by ArduPilot’s large software ecosystem.
Questions
- Which software stack should I use for interfacing with ArduPilot?
(DroneKit looks good but seems outdated, are there alternatives?) - Which tools would best fit my use case and why?
- What’s the proper sequence of commands for this kind of mission?
(E.g., arm → VTOL takeoff → switch to GUIDED → fly to point → VTOL land → disarm) - Are there similar example projects or codebases I can learn from?
Happy about any advice!
(P.S. This is heavily inspired by rctestflight’s videos 
)