I'm in the process of building my first quadcopter. So far I have something that can 'fly' if I send serial input through a wire from my laptop to the arduino on board, but as of yet I don't have a transmitter/receiver or any sort of flight software/sensors working.
I got one of these from ebay. It's a gyro/accelerometer board and a magnetometer that mounts onto an arduino. I have it assembled and it works- as in I've run basic scripts I found online for it which print out various sensor readings (they don't include the magnetometer, so I don't know if that works or how I can get it to work). It looks like although these sensors are somewhat widely used, there isn't much documentation available on them from the manufacturer. I would be willing to buy something else to use instead (like a flight control board) if I really have to, but I thought I would try this first because I would end up with a better understanding of how the control board works, and since it's only $15 no big deal if it doesn't work out.
My goal is to move from this to a working quadcopter, but I'm not sure where to start. I don't know how I'm supposed to use the data I get from the sensor to auto level the copter. I imagine that eventually, after extensive research, I could modify the code I found to take the data it collects and adjust the current to each motor by just the right amount to keep it balanced. But that sounds like it would involve weeks of studying the device and the code and trial-and-error testing. I feel that I'm missing something, that there's an easier way to do this than I can see.
I don't expect an easy solution, but could someone tell me generally what steps I need to take from here, what types of things I have to know and research in order to get a finished product? Thanks in advance. :tennis:
I got one of these from ebay. It's a gyro/accelerometer board and a magnetometer that mounts onto an arduino. I have it assembled and it works- as in I've run basic scripts I found online for it which print out various sensor readings (they don't include the magnetometer, so I don't know if that works or how I can get it to work). It looks like although these sensors are somewhat widely used, there isn't much documentation available on them from the manufacturer. I would be willing to buy something else to use instead (like a flight control board) if I really have to, but I thought I would try this first because I would end up with a better understanding of how the control board works, and since it's only $15 no big deal if it doesn't work out.
My goal is to move from this to a working quadcopter, but I'm not sure where to start. I don't know how I'm supposed to use the data I get from the sensor to auto level the copter. I imagine that eventually, after extensive research, I could modify the code I found to take the data it collects and adjust the current to each motor by just the right amount to keep it balanced. But that sounds like it would involve weeks of studying the device and the code and trial-and-error testing. I feel that I'm missing something, that there's an easier way to do this than I can see.
I don't expect an easy solution, but could someone tell me generally what steps I need to take from here, what types of things I have to know and research in order to get a finished product? Thanks in advance. :tennis:
