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Flight Controller Setup

Note

This page contains instructions for flashing pre-built firmware binaries. For instructions on building and flashing from source, see Building and Flashing in the Developer Guide.

Compatible Hardware

Currently, the ROSflight firmware only supports an in-development board from AeroVironment, the Varmint. This board is not yet commercially available, but plans are for it to start being sold early 2024.

We also plan to add support for the CubePilot Orange, which uses the same H7 processor as the Varmint.

Serial Port Configuration

Tip

You can see which groups you are a member of by running groups $USER on the command line.

The following bullet point is necessary:

  • Be sure your user is in the dialout and plugdev groups so you have access to the serial ports. You will need to log out and back in for these changes to take effect. 
    sudo usermod -aG dialout,plugdev $USER

If you experience issues, you may need one or both of the next two bullet points:

  • Temporarily stop the modem-manager (Sometimes, Linux thinks the device is a modem -- this command will be effective until next boot, or until you run the command again with start in place of stop) 

    sudo systemctl stop ModemManager.service

  • Add the custom udev rule so Linux handles the flight controller properly (copy the following as /etc/udev/rules.d/45-stm32dfu.rules) 

    # DFU (Internal bootloader for STM32 MCUs)
SUBSYSTEM=="usb", ATTRS{idVendor}=="0483", ATTRS{idProduct}=="df11", MODE="0664", GROUP="plugdev"

Tip

You can permanently disable the ModemManager if you do not need it, then you won't have to disable it every time you reboot: 

sudo systemctl disable ModemManager.service
Replace disable with enable to revert (i.e. if you find some other program you use needs access to it). Or you can uninstall it entirely from your system: 
sudo apt purge modemmanager

Flashing Firmware

TODO

Update flashing instructions.

F4 Boards

  • Install the dfu-util utility
sudo apt install dfu-util
  • Download the latest rosflight-F4.bin file, found here
  • Put the board in bootloader mode (short the boot pins while restarting the board by cycling power)

Tip

dfu-util auto-detects F4-based boards. Try dfu-util -l to make sure your board is in bootloader mode

  • Flash the firmware to the device 
        dfu-util -a 0 -s 0x08000000 -D rosflight-F4.bin