I know this isn't the answer you're looking for. A bit of searching leads me to think a direct camera upgrade isn't feasible. However, it will lift a gopro. That and some other mods are detailed in the linked video:AR Drone / GoPro DIY Aerial Video Mods - RC QuadcopterI have started to work on DroneProxy some time ago to work around bugs in the firmware of the drone. Basically it is a transparent proxy for the UDP AT command packets arriving on port 5556. The packets are parsed to keep track of the sequence number. If no packets are received for 1500 ms the proxy will start sending “landing” commands with increasing sequence numbers (until somebody plugs the battery…). If you wondered how the update process to version 1.3.3 would look if you attached a serial console…. During my telnet visits to the Parrot AR.Drone i wondered what all the serial ports (/dev/ttyPA0..And now I know which one is used by what and where i can find them on the board. The pinout for a USB cable can be found at the official Parrot website….here.

/dev/ttyPA0 is used by the bootloader and the kernel and can be found on the “USB” port (Pin 4 is RX and Pin 6 is TX) and greets us with:parrot ar drone competitor This serial interface should allow us to attach a GPS module (with a TTL level serial interface) directly, without the need of a new kernel! ar drone power edition prezziGPS here we come!black ops 2 escort drone glitch /dev/ttyPA1 is used to interface with the motor controllers. There must be some de-multiplexer between the serial port and the 4 motor controllers. I actually managed to randomly start a motor by typing garbage into this. /dev/ttyPA2 connects to the navboard and continously spits out navdata from all sensors. After Parrot finally released the GPL sources for their kernel changes it was time to dig into the firmware some more.

Last week i was taking a closer look at the closed source control binary which has the innovative name “program.elf”. It turns out that the binary dynamically links to libiw (from the wireless_tools) which is a GPL licensed library. You can easily check this yourself by telneting into the drone: Antoine Ferran (from Parrot) confirmed this fact on the next morning: The libiw is dynamically linked with the program but it is a mistake. Libiw is not needed anymore: it is a remnant of a previous test version. Any calls to libiw has been removed from the current build that will be released soon. You can find the complete discussion here. I am pretty confident that they will not get away with that and will have to release the source code. Actually that could be a really good way for Parrot to get help from the community to fix all of the critical bugs in the current firmware (“fly-away” syndrom, random crashes, ….) and make a much better product!

Now that i am done messing with the software and actually completing a few test flights, I figured it was about time to tear the drone apart. The only thing required is a tiny torx screwdriver (T6X20) which fortunately i had laying around on my desk because we use the same screws to tighten the GSM modules on to our GSM cards. Once you remove the plastic shielding you can see the mainboard stacked on top of the navboard (which carries the ultrasonic sender/receiver). The front camera is connected with a ribbon cable coming from the right. Above that camera connector is a 7 pin USB header. Undo 4 little screws and you can remove the navboard (which plugs into the backside of the mainboard with an 8 pin connector…probably serialish). Here you see the mainboard with the camera cable removed and the battery connector ripped out of the shell (to give some space for moving the mainboard). The mainboard has 2 on-circuit wifi antennas (ANT1 and ANT2): This is the navboard with the ultrasonic sender/receiver pair.

The “ugly padding” on the left is probably to shield the right one from receiving the “echo” through vibrations across the pcb (instead of receving the reflected signal through the air). The 8 pin connector connects to the mainboard. The other side of the navboard: And the other side of the mainboard: The drone is really easy to take apart and also to re-assemble. It even does work again. The PX4FMU (“PX4”) is end of life and is not generally available for purchase. This article is made available for This page provides an overview of the PX4 Flight Management Unit. Pixhawk (FMUv2) and PX4 (FMUv1) There are now two separate platforms supporting the PX4 system: The Pixhawk (FMUv2) single board flight controller. And the original PX4 system which consists of the PX4 FMUv1 and various piggyback boards including the PX4IO and PX4IOAR. The new Pixhawk also incorporates several additional features to provide extended capabilities for our APM flight system.

A connector diagram of the Pixhawk is shown below, but The PX4 (FMUv1) Flight Management System Includes: The PX4-FMU (Flight Management Unit). A powerful Cortex M4F microcontroller and flash memory for controlling flight and communications. A socket for a plug in SD memory card. A 3 axis gyro for determining orientation. A 3 axis Accelerometer for determining outside influences. A barometric pressure sensor for determining altitude. A connection for an externally mountable UBLOX LEA GPS for Stackable board interconnections for adding various peripheral Communications interfaces for USB, JTAG and Serial connections. Connections for PPM-SUM RC radio input and servo outputs. The PX4-IO (Input Output) Board. Contains its own on board microcontroller and stacks with the FMU. Direct battery input power supply. 8 High speed servo PWM outputs. Futaba SBUS or PPM-SUM serial servo output. A variety of PPM-SUM / SBUS input connectors.

Two user assignable relays, two 1/2 amp 5 volt outputs and an The PX4-FLOW Smart (Optical Flow) Camera. Specialized downward pointing camera module that uses ground texture and features to determine aircraft motion over the ground. The PX4 Flow has the same powerful Cortex M4F Microcontroller as is used in the PX4FMU. The built in microcontroller performs on board automated binned pixel image analysis to determine motion relative to ground. A built in 3 axis gyro enables automatic compensation for variance in aircraft tilt angle. The PX4-IOAR Quad Carrier is a specialized interface board for the The PX4 FMU circuit board comes preassembled and ready to load the firmware for your airframe using the Mission Planner. The Back of the PX4 FMU showing the SD card carrier and buzzer Analog and digital pins This section lists what pins (analog and digital) are available on the The PX4 has the following “available” Analog input port pins which may

be put to a variety of uses. Pin 10 (High voltage analog pin): FMU battery voltage measured on pin 5 of the 15 pin multi-connector on the end of the FMU board. It has 5.7:1 scaling, allowing it to measure up to 18.8V. Located on pin 5 of the DF13 15 pin “multi-connector” of the PX4FMU This pin can accept up to 18.6 volts. (You can add an additional resistor divider and set the scaling appropriately for higher With the Advanced Parameter VOLT_DIVIDER set to 1 voltage can be For old releases VOLT_DIVIDER needed to be set to 5.66 for direct Pin 11 (Analog airspeed input pin) Located on pin 2 of the 3 pin “FMU-PRS” DF13 connector on the PX4IO Generally used in Plane for the Air Speed Sensor with VCC on pin 1, Sensor on pin 2 and Ground on pin 3. Plane Advanced Parameter: ASPD_PIN set to 11. This pin is directly connected to the ADC on the PX4FMU. This pin can accept up to 6.6 volts (it has an internal voltage

divider with 2:1 scaling). Pin 12 (Analog 2 input) Located on pin 3 of the “FMU-SPI” port on the PX4IO board. Commonly used for Sonar Copter and Rover Advanced Parameter: SONAR_PIN set to 12 This pin can accept up to 3.3 volts. Pin 13 (Analog 3 input) Located on pin 4 of the “FMU-SPI” port on the PX4IO board. Commonly used for Sonar 2 in dual Sonar installations. Rover Advanced Parameter: SONAR2_PIN set to 13 Pin 100 (Battery voltage measured on the power connector on the IO A virtual analog input pin for voltage of a battery connected to the 6V to 18V input of the PX4IO voltage regulator. This is the normal pin to use for LiPo monitoring on the PX4IO. If using this pin then set VOLT_DIVIDER to 1 for correct battery Virtual “pin” 100’s input comes only from the battery power in jack on the PX4IO board. This “pin” is not brought out for separate user access. This pin is separate from the Pin 10 high voltage analog pin on the

PX4FMU listed above which can also be used as a battery voltage Pin 101: Battery current measured on the pin next to the power connector on the IO board. A virtual analog input pin for a battery current sensor connected to the “current” pin next to the power connector on the PX4IO. You need to be careful to use a current sensor that will not provide over 3.3V as too high a voltage on this pin can cause the PX4IO to reset. For use with a current sensor, a 0.1uF capacitor between this pin and ground will help reduce “noise”. The PX4V1 digital output pins come in two types, one is pins that give 5V when on and 0V when off, and the other are ‘relay’ pins which provide low resistance when on and high resistance when off. Pin 111: FMU Relay pin 1 Pin 112: FMU Relay pin 2 Pin 113: IO Relay pin 1 Pin 114: IO Relay pin 2 Pin 115: IO digital accessory pin 1 Pin 116: IO digital accessory pin 2

Copter wiring (diagram and instructions) Wire the PX4-IO board. The PX4IO board has a built in Power Supply which can connect to up to 18 volts. Insert the white PAP-02-VS 2 pin connector with the black and red wires coming out of it into the mating power connector you soldered in previously on the PX4IO board. Battery Plus is the(red wire) and should be soldered to your battery red power lead / connector. Battery Ground is the(black wire) and should be soldered to your battery black battery (Ground) lead / connector. The main power inputs of your ESC’s will also need to connect to these wires and to a battery connector. A Power Distribution board can also be used. Connect your PPM-Sum RC receiver’s 3 wire cable to the end of the 9 x 3 angle connector that is nearest the edge of the PX4IO board with the signal wire furthest from the board and the ground closest to the Wire the PX4 boards servo out signals to your ESC control inputs.

Run the Signal wires ONLY from the ESCs to the 3 x 9 Servo Connector on the PX4IO board. The PX4IO board connector for Motor 1 is at the edge of the connector next to the Battery power in wires. Insert the Motor ESC wires arranged progressively from that edge, (1,2,3,4,etc) for 2 to 8 motors depending on your copter type. You can put the ESC Signal wires into a single inline connector with the correct number of pins for your copter. The ESC Signal Wires / connector should be plugged into the top row (furthest from the board) of the PX4IO boards 3 x 9 Servo Note, the cable that is supplied in the plastic envelope with the UBLOX GPS which has white 6 pin connectors on both ends is not the correct cable for the PX4FMU board. The correct longer GPS cable is provided in a separate envelope and has a 5 pin “beige” connector on one end and a 6 pin white connector on the other end. Plug the correct GPS cable’s white 6 pin connector into the 6 pin