Autonomous Airplane

#008 Autonomous Airplane

last updated: 4/12/21

I have produced several iterations of Ardupilot powered airplanes. Ardupilot is an opensource flight software which originally ran on the Arduino microcontroller, but now runs on larger processors like (in my case) a PX4.

The Sailplane

The sailplane was created to learn about the Pixhawk Flight computer and its features. I was gifted the frame, so all that I needed to do was to upgrade the electronics. It succeeded in autonomous flight, but failed to land autonomously due to an unmanageably good glide slope.

The Bomber

The sailplane worked well: in fact, it worked too well. To counter this, the next design I modeled after two things: the Douglas A-26 Invader, and a brick. To give you a rough idea, it flew at 80% throttle and I don't think I ever had a nice landing. It did fly autonomously, and featured landing gear.

Here is the plane flying a wide autonomous loiter pattern. I Thought it looked pretty cool and was pretty excited. Probably the best part was the sound when it flies overhead.

A low pass from the plane. Again, the sound was the coolest part.

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