Open Solo announcement from ArduPilot

[Pedals2Paddles]

This is a the official blog and announcement from ArduPilot on the open sourcing of Solo and how it's working. Please have a read and join the fun! This is monumental occasion for the Solo community and ArduPilot. Everyone has been asking for this day to happen for over a year since 3DR gave it up. That day is here.

OpenSolo Initiative - by the ArduPilot Team

The opening of this code will allow incredible and endless possibilities. The solo lives on!

 

[just_bruce]

So happy, so glad to see the power of Open Source let a product live on.

I have emotional whiplash from the past two days...

Can I also say I wish there wasn't so much involving open source taking place inside the walled garden that is Facebook? The blog post mentions three separate Facebook groups...not all of us wanna be on Facebook

 

[pyrate]

Man that is nice the ardupilot team is jumping on this!!!

 

[cnc74]

Will somebody bake the 3v mitigation code into the latest FW now that its avalible?

 

[Pedals2Paddles]

Will somebody bake the 3v mitigation code into the latest FW now that its avalible?

It may be a long time before that is in stable production ArduCopter. Not many people on the development team are super excited about it. It is basically a software hack to sort of get around a hardware problem which most professional developers are not fans of.

@hugh has been working on a branch that has it. Getting it into reality is just tough.

 

[ricardo2pinho]

Thank's for the excellent news P2P, THAT'S THE WAY TO GO!
And congratulations to all behind this initiative!

3DR is changing their business model to the newest Autodesk's "subscriptions": autocad, recap , bim-360 , fusion-360 , etc.
Probably because they believe that's the way to go billionaire...!

Free software/hardware, open source and open knowledge is the only way to survive monopoly!
I recommend to Fork (copy) every 3DR SOLO software line available on Github.
Because 3DR may tend to forget all the drone community free software licenses behind their software and bypass the copyleft protection.

 

[Pedals2Paddles]

I recommend to Fork (copy) every 3DR SOLO software line available on Github.
Because 3DR may tend to forget all the drone community free software licenses behind their software and bypass the copyleft protection.

The Open Solo github repositories are NOT 3DR's repos. Those are out of their hands and 3DR has no administrative rights in them. Those are ours for good. 3DR gave their data to our team and David Buzz did most of the work setting up all our own repos for it.

 

[just_bruce]

Probably the most valuable things at present are solo-builder and imx6-uboot, since they allow custom kernel and module compilation to be MUCH easier.

But that'll probably be superseded by gimbal code when/if it arrives.

Next week I'm setting up my own build server so I can build the OpenSolo code base as I develop.

 

[Pedals2Paddles]

You'll notice the solo-builder makes use of many of those repos for their various components. It pulls from the internet to do the build, so a high speed internet connection and powerful computer running linux is a must. You can redirect where it goes fishing for the repos to your own local servers or other branches.

If you have modifications, the best practice will be to fork > clone > mod > push > PR > merge into master. Which will probably work just fine if you're redirecting to your own build server too.

 

[ricardo2pinho]

The Open Solo github repositories are NOT 3DR's repos.

Excelent!
But I was referring to SOLO specific repos at
3D Robotics · GitHub:
GitHub - 3drobotics/ardupilot-solo
GitHub - 3drobotics/mavlink-solo: MAVlink Protocol Setup for solo
...

 

[Pedals2Paddles]

Those are also forked over to Open Solo already I think.

 

[skyhax]

Does this in any way open the door to controlling newer cameras?
Maybe not likely but if the hero6 comes with the same port in the back as Hero 4 Black? Not asking for me since my camera is supported.

 

[Pedals2Paddles]

Does this in any way open the door to controlling newer cameras?
Maybe not likely but if the hero6 comes with the same port in the back as Hero 4 Black? Not asking for me since my camera is supported.

Yes it does open that door. That doesn't change the fact that the gimbal isn't going to magically fit some other camera in the plastic mount.

 

[Solo_Maverick]

That's awesome!
On the software, how can we get a way to activate the app and Solo without depending on 3DR's servers? Is that possible today?
My concern is 3DR dropping Solo and in the future if we want to install the apps in a new tablet and it has nowhere to connect and activate.

 

[Pedals2Paddles]

That's awesome!
On the software, how can we get a way to activate the app and Solo without depending on 3DR's servers? Is that possible today?
My concern is 3DR dropping Solo and in the future if we want to install the apps in a new tablet and it has nowhere to connect and activate.

In progress my friend. In fact I've already created a new golden image (factory reset) file system to replace the existing one. This will eliminate the need for doing the "pre-flight update" over the internet to 3DR's servers. 3DR could shut those down tomorrow and we will live on without them. I'm currently working on the deployment process for people to load it onto their Solo and controller. The nice, easy, automated process will, at least for the near future, be done via the Solex app on Android and be pretty nicely automated. The Side Pilot app on iOS may be able to pick up on the process too, as it is nothing totally android specific. A manual process using a PC can be done too. BTW this also makes the factory reset process compatible with the Green Cube.

As far as the 3DR Solo applications on Android and iOS go... those have no been open sourced yet, but they're working on it. At worst, they will be as they are today and remain available but rather old. The Solex App is quickly taking over as the go-to app for Android. And the Side Pilot app is probably where the iOS future lies. Neither of which require 3DR for anything.

 

[just_bruce]

You'll notice the solo-builder makes use of many of those repos for their various components. It pulls from the internet to do the build, so a high speed internet connection and powerful computer running linux is a must. You can redirect where it goes fishing for the repos to your own local servers or other branches.

If you have modifications, the best practice will be to fork > clone > mod > push > PR > merge into master. Which will probably work just fine if you're redirecting to your own build server too.

Yeah, already pulled the scripts down. Would just be altering the scripts to point at a local directory structure once I'd cloned everything. I'm pretty useless with git aside from cloning a repository.... another thing I intended to rectify when I got a supply of circular 2ITs.....

 

[Pedals2Paddles]

The builder is running on my laptop now. It is a CPU killer. my laptop is an "old" dual core i5. The thing is pegged at 90-100% CPU and will probably take all day for the initial build. But apparently subsequent builds only redo what has changed so they go fast. As long as you don't remove/destroy the VM.

 

[just_bruce]

Hence the reason I'd like to run it on the dual quad-core Xeon w/32gb of RAM that lives in the basement.

I've got YouTube video to watch.

 

[hardhat068]

P2P, I assume that there is a forthcoming FW update based on what you guys are working on now. Will this FW come for the stock PIxhawk and Green Cube or only for Green Cube?

 

[Ed Beck]

P2P, I assume that there is a forthcoming FW update based on what you guys are working on now. Will this FW come for the stock PIxhawk and Green Cube or only for Green Cube?

Just adding a comment to track this thread. I have the same question about what this means for Green Cube. I'm also very interested in if this is going to mean we can use Solo code on an octo-copter.