RC India

Hey Folks,
I am new in here, i wish to work on a protocol for quad copters, opensource
i need some kind of help that where can i get some low cost quad copters with autopilot feature for my project work. any leads would be helpful, i am based at New Delhi
Thanks in anticipation

Welcome buddy.
Nice project selection and good time to start working on them.
If you want to develop from scratch then things you need to consider.
1. You need a library to read PWM values from RC receiver(you can also build one). If receiver has PPM output then your work is easy and libraries are available and I have a custom library built for atmega328p(atmel studio compatible not arduino IDE compatible).
-->you have input at this step.
2. You may need a library to communicate with MPU6050 accelerometer + gyroscope. I do not suggest to write a library for this as it may consume so much time because you may have to study complementary filter or kalman filter or extended kalman filter which are filtering algorithms to determine the tilt angles and angular velocity.
-->you also know quadcopter state at this point.
3. Now you can concentrate on writing your main application and you have to understand the motor mixing in quadcopter(you can ping me I worked on it sometime back).
4. Now you need to understand the PID control system looping mechanisms and mix the outputs and outputs must be sent to motors accordingly.

You can rather build a brushed version of the same, a tiny quadcopter lets say 100mm which wil cut down your repair cost.

However I do not recommend you to start your work from scratch as it is very much time taking process and needs to be funded because there may be lot of crashes and all.

You can have a look at his work. This is very basic yet very good to get you started.
http://www.brokking.net/ He has everything you need to get you started from scratch to complete your copter. The code is very well documented(I felt it don't know about you). He posted his entire work in step by step procedure on youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2pHdO8m6T7c.

You can then study the open source MULTIWII project which I believe is the first ever open source and many other flight controlling algorithm are emerged from it.

Cleanflight, betaflight are also available as open source and these are also well documented.

There is ardupilot(APM) which is open source and very well documented. It has many functionalities you can ever imagine. This is the best open source flight controller.

Hi there,
First of all, I really appreciated Reddy's reply and that video was awesome.
Probably if I would in your place, the simplest option is to look up for the arducopter software in arduino and we can hook it up with Arduino Mega 2560. AC is the best open source arduino based software so far and it's well documented too as Reddy said. They have tons of data on their site about building and developing AC software and have tons of capabilities. You can look for their code, understand the algorithm and modify it for best results. You can also add better obstacle avoidance in cheap price rather than using the choices like TeraRange finder and expensive sonar they give us. You may also add end to end encryption which will more better and safe than the ACCST technology by FrSky. But for that you may need different transmission protocol.
We also are interested in this topic, make a GitHub page and share your progress here too. Good luck.
 Regards

The advice given so far as good. I too would recommend the APM 3.x platform, since it is based on Arduino.

But to go further you'll need to provide more details. What is the protocol? What does it do? Whom does it communicate with? Without knowing the relevant details, you won't get a relevant answer.


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AC 3.x and APM 2.x

To make life easier I recommend multiwii 328p or multiwii 2.5 se which has all components built into it and has enough room. APM 2.x or 3.x will be good down the road if you need to expand on existing h/w. Cost of multiwii would be cheaper and all the libraries are available. A ftdi cable would be easier for debugging.