Get an email when the fern your mother gave you needs watering. Connect your Wii Guitar Hero World Tour drum set to a MIDI piano for the ultimate jam session. Create a clock that speaks to you in multiple languages. Arduino is known for its open source electronics single board microcontroller that uses sensors to perform tasks limited only by your imagination. Artists, designers, hobbyists and anyone interested in creating interactive products or environments have shared hundreds of projects using the Arduino microcontroller that can be found at the Arduino Playground.
Arduino was co-founded by Italian engineer Massimo Banzi in 2005, see Ted Talk, when his team created the first Arduino microcontroller. Following a tremendous positive reaction to the first Arduino microcontrollers, the team has created its own small, and growing, industry niche. Now Arduino is expanding into RC territory with the ArduPilot Mega Project.
ArduPilot Mega Project
The ArduPilot project is a family of autopilots using ArduPilot Mega (APM) electronics and free software that turns Radio Controlled (RC) vehicles into autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) or ground fixed-wing aircraft, multi copters, helicopters or ground rovers and boats.
APM software provides autonomous stabilization, GPS navigation and fully programmable waypoint missions with camera angle and shot control using 8 RC channels, four serial support bands and an all-in design.
Hardware includes three-axis gyros, three-axis accelerometers, three-axis magnetometers, barometric pressure altitude sensors, GPS module, onboard data logging memory, data export, failsafe processor, return to launch on radio loss, an optional airspeed sensors, current sensors and two-way telemetry.
The ArduPilot Family (Image Courtesy www.diydrones.com)
For more information features and hardward in packages visit: http://www.diydrones.com
