Building and install ArduPilot firmware for Pixhawk on Mac
NOTE: This is for Copter v3.2.1 and earlier. For v3.3 and later, things have been simplified greatly.
Use Homebrew to install various packages
brew tap PX4/homebrew-px4
brew update
brew install genromfs
brew install gcc-arm-none-eabi
brew install gawk
This is a little risky and may not be necessary...
sudo rm -f /usr/bin/awk
sudo ln -s `which gawk` /usr/bin/awk
Install pyserial
easy_install pip
pip install pyserial empy numpy catkin_pkg
Install ardupilot and dependencies
mkdir px4
cd px4
git clone https://github.com/diydrones/ardupilot.git
git clone https://github.com/diydrones/PX4Firmware.git
git clone https://github.com/diydrones/PX4NuttX.git
git clone git://github.com/diydrones/uavcan.git
Configure (This will generate ../config.mk file)
cd ardupilot/ArduCopter/
make configure
On a Mac, change the following line so that make can find proper arduino files
vim ../config.mk
# Comment out the following line
# BOARD = mega2560
# HAL_BOARD ?= HAL_BOARD_APM2
HAL_BOARD ?= HAL_BOARD_PX4
# If you want make to upload the built firmware, specify the tty as well.
PORT = /dev/tty.usbmodem1
# ARDUINO = /path/to/Arduino¬
ARDUINO = /Applications/ArduPilot.app/Contents/Resources/Java/
Build
Install ccache to speed up compilation
brew install ccache
ln -s ccache /usr/local/bin/gcc
ln -s ccache /usr/local/bin/g++
ln -s ccache /usr/local/bin/cc
ln -s ccache /usr/local/bin/c++
Run make twice as indicated in the official guide (first time to build PX4Firmware and Nuttex, 2nd time to build ArduCopter)
make px4-v2
make px4-v2
Finally build the arducopter firmware for pixhawk
make px4-quad
There should be 2 firmware files now. ArduCopter-v1.px4 for the original PX4, ArduCopter-v2.px4 for Pixhawk.
To enable parallel builds and specifically build pixhawk quad firmware
make px4-v2-quad -j2
To build for other frame types, use make commands (substitute quad, tri, hexa, y6, octa, octa-quad, heli for [frame type])
make px4-clean
make px4-[frame type]
NOTE: make clean only cleans non-px4 targets
To cleanup just the dependencies
make px4-cleandep
Upload compiled firmware to your px4 board
make px4-quad-upload -j4
For pixhawk, specify v2
make px4-v2-quad-upload -j4
Connect to Pixhawk to see if the firmware is working properly
screen /dev/tty.usbmodem1 115200 8N1
# OR
sudo cu -l /dev/tty.usbmodem1 -s 115200
Note: You have to connect to the serial interface right after Pixhawk finish booting and press Enter key 3 times to start the shell.
Or use MAVProxy
mavproxy.py --master=/dev/tty.usbmodem1
Obsolete:
mavproxy.py --setup --master=/dev/tty.usbmodem1
--setup option was used to get raw serial data without MAVLink mode parsing, but it seems like the whole console has been removed from newer version and it doesn't work, so omit --setup option.
Troubleshooting
If you get a build error in one of the submodules, force update submodules. Since ArduPilot started tracking submodule versions, it's become pretty common. Make sure you set --recursive option as many submodules have their own submodules.
git submodule update --init --recursive --force