SoylentNews

Arthur T Knackerbracket has processed the following story:

The availability of cheap and powerful RC motors and electronics has made it possible for almost anyone to build an RC flying machine. Software is usually the bigger challenge, which has led to the development of open-source packages like BetaFlight and Ardupilot. These packages are very powerful, but not easy to modify if you have unconventional requirements. [Nichola Rehm] faced this challenge while doing his master’s degree, so he created dRehmFlight, a customizable flight controller for VTOL aircraft.

[Nichalo] has repeatedly demonstrated the capabilities of dRehmFlight with several unique aircraft, like the belly flopping RC Starship we covered a while ago, a VTOL quad rotor biplane, VTOL F35, and the cyclocopter seen in the header image. dRehmFlight might not have the racing drone performance of BetaFlight, or advanced autopilot features of Ardupilot, but it’s perfect for getting unconventional aircraft off the ground.

dRehmFlight on GitHub.

dRehmFlight is a simple, bare-bones flight controller intended for all types of vertical takeoff and landing (VTOL) vehicles from simple multirotors to more complex transitioning vehicles. This flight controller software and hardware package was developed with people in mind who may not be particularly fluent in object-oriented programming. The goal is to have an easy to understand flow of discrete operations that allows anyone with basic knowledge of coding in C/Arduino to peer into the code, make the changes they need for their specific application, and quickly have something flying. It is assumed that anyone using this code has previous experience building and flying model aircraft and is familiar with basic RC technology and terminology. The Teensy 4.0 board used for dRehmFlight is an extremely powerful microcontroller that allows for understandable code to run at very high speeds: perfect for a hobby-level flight controller.

The Teensy 4.0 microcontroller.

[Ed Note - I work with the Teensy 4.x for digital signal processing in some amateur radio projects. It's fast and a joy to use. I'm not surprised to find a Teensy 4.x at the heart of this project. - Fnord]

Original Submission