My question may sound really basic as well as I know I can find these answers on internet, but not at a single place. So I am really grateful to the community if they could help me out.
I was getting very confused between the terms and terminologies and their meanings. I wanted to know, what among the following is what (software, firmware, hardware, API, etc) and what are their usages.
Ardupilot
Pixhawk
PX4
APM
Arducopter
Arduflight
Mission Planner
QGround Control
I know the last 2 are mission planning software but I would still like to know about them in detail. I am really sorry for the irrelevency in the question, if there’s any.
ArduPilot is the overall term for the Flightstack/community around this flightstack, flightstack is the software that controls your Copter, Plane, Helicopter, Rover, etc…
Pixhawk is an autopilot which supports Ardupilot and px4. So the Pixhawk is the hardware (one option, there are more flight controllers) on which the software (flightstack) runs
px4 is a different software developed by other people for (nearly) the same use case
APM stands for ArdupilotMega, which is the predecessor of the Pixhawk, so a hardware board. The name comes from the Arduino Mega, since it used the same processor.
Arducopter is the part of the software which can control copters and helicopters. Ardupilot is the overall term while there is ArduCopter for Copters, ArduPlane for Planes, ArduRover for Rovers, etc…
Never heard of that, possibly you meant Ardupilot?
Mission Planner is a GroundControlStation (GCS) which connects the vehicle to your computer for setup and telemetry. Mission Planner is specifically developed for ArduPilot.
QGroundControl is also an GCS, but not specifically developed for ArduPilot. Although for day to day usage it works just fine with ArduPilot.