BeagleBone Blue

[Mark Whitehorn]

This is a very inexpensive way to get started with a flight controller running Debian Linux: http://beagleboard.org/blue

ARM Cortex A8 with 512MB RAM, 4GB flash plus 2 real-time 200MHz coprocessors

and on-board barometer, MPU9250

I hadn't used a BeagleBoard before, but I found it fairly easy to set up a complete gcc toolchain and compile ArduPilot onboard.

Of course it makes more sense to cross-compile on a bigger machine, but that shows how powerful the BBB platform is.

--Mark

[Peter Hollands]

Hi Mark, 

So you did not get MatrixPilot running then. 😉

I recently starting using the Pi Zero initially for telemetry capture for the UDB5.  I soon came to realise that it takes Linux some time to boot (although I can get auto start my own app 3 seconds after the kernel starts [but the file system is not ready]), and that I really needed to create a shutdown button, as Linux does not really like to be just switched off. I suppose all of that is taken care of in the BeagleBone Blue. It looks like a lovely board for Linux based robotics. I also looked at whether some of the MatrixPilot code could run in the beaglebone PRU. But the memory of the PRU looks a little too small.

So for now, the UDB5 is my PRU  and my in flight Linux device is the Pi Zero. Much smaller footprint, but less cpu power.

Best wishes, Pete

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[Mark Whitehorn]

Hi Pete,

ArduPilot was easy for me to try as a first-time BBB user because there were explicit instructions on how to install and run it.

And the PRU looks very interesting; it would perhaps be possible to repartition MatrixPilot to run IO, DCM and PID control in the PRUs 

as a failsafe mechanism. I assume the PRUs could keep running even with Linux crashed, handling RC input and providing

stabilization of a multicopter to allow safe recovery and shutdown.

I'm currently doing a "shutdown now" before powering the BBB down, but it doesn't seem to mind if I skip that step.

best regards, Mark

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