inav

Err, while it takes a little more technical know-how and some electronics experience, this already exists and is still extremely easy to do.. https://betaflight.com/ or https://github.com/iNavFlight/inav or https://ardupilot.org/ among others

I think DJI is pretty locked down. Probably you would want to build a new drone, OpenHD uses a Raspberry Pi and ExpressLRS uses STM32 (and a few other various chips) but you can get DIY kits that are relatively easy to set up on sites like https://www.getfpv.com for example. Also check out INAV if you want to build a more DJI-style drone, this would be the Flight Control software: https://github.com/iNavFlight/inav Other FC software include ArduPilot for more of a groundstation approach, while Betaflight, EmuFlight, and similar FC software are what FPV race, freestyle, and cinematic pilots prefer.

Very interesting. If I understand correctly - this essentially solves the problem of each Electron application having to package the entirety of chromium with it. However it comes at the cost of assuming the user already has chrome installed - as well as a more separate model between browser (UX) code and application logic. I see this as being extremely useful for community tools that currently run on Electron (like iNav https://github.com/iNavFlight/inav/wiki). I'm hesitant to think it will be very viable for commercial products - but my instincts are wrong most of the time. Ideally carlo would also be able to create a build target that bundles chromium with it, so that there is support for users without Chrome - and carlo will act more like Electron in that case.

The physics involved in multi-rotor drones and fixed wing aircraft are quite different. However, there is control software that works on either. https://github.com/iNavFlight/inav/wiki The underlying differences in how they fly aren't that relevant. You have a six-axis IMU, various controls that influence how the craft behaves in those axes and various PID loops that influence the controls. I don't really understand the downvotes. Obviously, having a type certificated auto-pilot for a commercial helicopter is a world apart from the flight control system for a hobby-scale drone, but the gap between them has nothing to do with the technology and everything to do with the process of type certification. My point is that it's pretty impressive what these software projects are able to achieve with sub $100 MCUs. Some of them now have 32khz

build your own multiwii based drone. you'll get a more complete understanding of the hardware and software this way: https://nathan.vertile.com/blog/2016/04/24/rctimer-u210-mini... then for firmware, there are 3 modern forks of multiwii: cleanflight, betaflight and inav. if you want gps navigation, put iNav on it: https://github.com/iNavFlight/inav/ if you want awesome flight performance, use betaflight there is also a slightly more robust autopilot firmware, dronin (which is an openpilot continuation) which can run on the flight controller listed on that blog post: https://github.com/d-ronin/dronin/issues/9 full disclosure, that's my blog :)