Awesome Flying FPV Awesome

This is a list of Free Software and Open Hardware dedicated for multicopters as well as airplanes or flying wings. We list esp. established projects with a active community and also some classics that might be legacy but important projects with a lot of mods.

We hope to give you some orientation where to start and present you the full spectrum of open source development on the world of UAVs.

Warning You as creator, mechanic, spotter and pilot are responsible for your drone and doing. It is on you to avoid damages and not to hurt any person or animal. You are also responsible to match the local regulations of your country and to know where and how to fly with a minimum risk to others and yourself. Please respect good airmanship.

Warning In past and recent wars and military conflicts, parties make use of UAVs and sometimes DIY aircraft to spot and attack opponents. My intention on this technology is in opposite a peaceful research and learning on tech and nature, not on killing people! stopkillerrobots.org

Contents

Airframes

The body of a UAV depends on the kind of aircraft and is optimized for it's usecase. Is it high speed for racing, improved agility for acrobatic freestyle, a heavy lifter for filming , long distance observations, ... . This requirements result in different mechanics and materials and take DIY aspect into account.

You will find also a lot of spare parts or mods / extensions to commercial vehicles, which we don't list up here!

Note Building a UAV from scratch is a pretty challenging task for a beginner, esp. if you have limited amount of time. So it might be wise, to try existing solutions or kits before, so you don't get stuck to early and have a handy manual. Later on, you can try different mods or start with custom builds, if you have gained more experience and know how to avoid common pitfalls. See also: My Raspberry Pi drone: the story so far by Matchstic.

Multicopters 🚁

Copters are built using different materials from alu / carbon profiles to CNC cuts to full 3D printed cases and have different configurations for different number of rotors (bi... octo):