VR Multipilot32F4, the most 'powerful Auto Pilot in the world based on STM32F4 compatible with arduino.It's ready to Fly.

[Roberto Navoni]

First early Flight Video only for test that all work fine ... a windy day and need to setup PID because with more power the old one is not good:

Dear Friends,
i'm happy to inform you that our new product Multipilot32F4 and NAVY 2012 is ready
for beta testing for a special price of 199 euro.

We presented it at the beginning of year .We finish to port low
level library from STM32F1 to STM32F4: We rewrite old libmaple for STM32F1 by scratch porting
all lib to STM32F4. (thank's Alberto V for his work on library)
So the AP_LIB have same interface of standard AP_LIB for arduino and
the Arducopter32  is very similar to original revision for Arduino
platform , share 98% with original code.

The firmware that i using in my fly test is Arducopter 2.5.4 so it's last available.

I'm doing my first fly test in these day with success . A video will be availabe in the next days

The characteristics of Multipilot32F4 are:

Hardware:

• ARM Cortex-M4 processor STM32F407VET6. 168 Mhz
• Flash 1024 Kbytes RAM 196 Kbytes
• 16-bit Timer 4
• SPI 2 (ADC Interface , MicroSD connection Option)
• I ² C 2 (First I2C (sensor), Second I2C control until ESC 12)
• USART 5 (GPS, DEBUG Console, XBee Pro Telemetry)
• USB 1 (Upload Firmware, Debug Console, Power Board for Debug)
• CAN 1 (Interconnection with Professional ESC 1 Mbit update rate)
• 8 PWM Output Bit 16 (ESC / Servo Control)
• 7 PWM Input 16 Bit (RC Input Channel, accept PPM SUM)
• 8 Analog Input 12 Bit.
• Professional 4 layers PCB.
• DC: DC 30 V (6s Lipo): 5 volts and 3.3 volts
• MPU6000 Imu Sensor 3 gyro and 3 acc on board

The NAVY 2012

• HMC5883 3 axis magnetic sensor
• EEPROM for data storage
• MS6511 high precision barometer
• MTEK GPS with custom firmware for arducopter.
• Dataflash on board.
• SDIO SD Card
• SPI SD Card that support FAT file systems. (Optional)

More info about the boards are available here :

http://www.virtualrobotix.com/page/multipilot32f4-v3-0

The board is yet in production and available the next stock could be
available in the middle of may.

There are a lot of tool for development :

• A very light toolchain for peolpe that like command line ... a lot in hard developer community.
• A VRIDE Pro that is an eclipse with support for JTAG debugging .. we using ST-LINK.
• An VRIDE Std that will be available in some week for end user .

Is possible to use the DFU on usb for upgrade firmware without problem.

This is the link for download last revision of  enviroment :http://code.google.com/p/multipilot32/downloads/detail?name=VR%20MP32F4%20%20IDE%20LIB%20FIRMWARE%2001-5-2012%202.6%20%20beta.rar&can=2&q=#makechanges

This is the link of the thread on virtualrobotix forum:
http://www.virtualrobotix.com/forum/topics/multipilot32-v3-f1-f4-and-new-vr-ide-pro

In our test we found more of 12x respect to standard Arduino Mega hardware platform.

The spare time cicle in 5 second is 3610 for APM and 42321 for an Multipilo32F4. 


In this test is not yet available the FPU acceleration only by different clock 16 mhz for arduino , 168 for Multipilot32F4



In this video you can see the different whe use FPU ON or FPU OFF math acceleragion going up 17x

This is the new benchmark   

Arduino APM1 e APM2  

PerfMon:            cpu%          mils #called Hz 

loop                     33.45%  96 3614 0hz 

read_AHR             34.09%    98       29 0hz 

FiftyHZ_Loop         2.88%         8        15 0hz 

Update_GPS           0.56%                  1       15 0hz 

setupA                   0.00%              0   0 0hz 

unexplained         29.03% 83  



STM32F1                        MP32F1  

PerfMon:                       cpu%        mils #called    Hz 

loop                            35.81%  112     18357   0hz 

read_AHR               23.53%  73      130             0hz Fif y

FiftyHZ_Loop   H           7.54   54      15              0hz 

SuperFast_Loop         3.04%   9       392             0hz 

Update_GPS             1.10%   3       15              0hz 

ReadBarometer          0.07%   0       3               0hz 

setupA                 0.00%   0       0               0hz

unexplained             18.91%  59    



STM32F4                 MP32F4 ( NOW I2C IS OK )  

PerfMon:                 cpu%    mils    #called Hz 

loop                       46.88%             131 42321 0hz 

read_AHR               11.01%  30      138     0hz 

SuperFast_Loop         8.45%   23      519     0hz 

FiftyHZ_Loop           3.00%   8       15      0hz 

Update_GPS             0.13%   0       15      0hz 

ReadBarometer          0.04%   0       3       0hz 

setupA                 0.00%   0       0       0hz 

unexplained            30.49%  85

So if someone would join the development is welcome :)

Best

Roberto Navoni

[Roberto Navoni]

Hi Andre,

for buy the kit you can write  a mail to  Elisa at  [e-mail]

best

Roberto

[Andre HONIG-NORTH]

Hi Roberto

Your proposal : Multipilot32F4 and NAVY 2012 is ready for beta testing for a special price of 199 euro.

What is the procedure to get one ?

Best regards

Andre

[DODY]

super...

[Sergio Molino]

Bravo Roberto

ti confermo la mia volontà a partecipare al programma, ora sono in Germania, ma fammi pure sapere come procedere. 

[Roberto Navoni]

Hi Albert , and Marco,

Thank's ;) It's Rock and Roll :)

[marcomasiero]

bravo Robi !!! :-)

 

[ALbert Drew]

WOW guys!! Ready to Rock n Roll.....Great job..