NEED HELP!! A Noob experimenting with KK 2.1.5 board in FT Explorer!

Doodeep Gogoi

New member
First of all, I don't understand anything about the concept of firmware. Like which firmware goes on which board and WHY!?Does it depend upon the aircraft model that you are flying? Do an RC drone and an RC plane use different firmware? What is the difference between a good firmware and the best firmware?

Please help me, guys! Eagerly waiting for a reply!:eek:
 

makattack

Winter is coming
Moderator
Mentor
Welcome to the FT Forums! It's a lot of questions you have posed, with potentially long answers. The short and simple of it is, firmware is basically what you call software that's typically loaded into embedded hardware systems. It's called that because firmware tends to be stored in persistent memory. It used to be flashed onto EEPROMS so it was called that because it's not quite hardware. It's software that resides in hardware, so it's "firmer."

So, that's why it's called that. Now, typically, software that's written for specific hardware means that it only knows about that hardware. In the case of the KK2 board, only software (firmware) written for that board will work with that specific board/hardware. Embedded systems generally imply limited resources (memory, CPU power, etc) so you can't have all this extra code that allows software to take into account a variety of hardware.

Since it sounds like you're looking to install the KK2 hardware on a fixed-wing platform, and KK2's were typically used for multirotors, and typically have the multirotor software installed, you will need to ensure you can install a version of software for the KK2 that is written specifically for fixed-wing platforms. I believe one such software is called OpenAero, and this appears to be the main thread for it:

https://www.rcgroups.com/forums/sho...-source-stabilisation-software-for-KK2-boards

That should answer your last question, so yes, indeed a multirotor and plane require different software. Not to say that one single software can't support both applications, but generally speaking, you will need beefier hardware (e.g. more memory/storage, CPU, etc) to run that sort of software. That doesn't get into the whole concept of VTOL fixed-wing aircraft and flight control software.