ArduPilot
- Software
- Drones and boats
- Firmware
ArduPilot is open-source autopilot software for controlling many vehicle types, including planes, multirotors, helicopters, rovers, boats and submarines, in development since 2010.
Source on GitHub: github.com/ArduPilot/ardupilot (opens in a new tab). Facts read at commit 8ab6afd (opens in a new tab).
Licenses
- Code
- GPL-3.0-only (opens in a new tab)
Read by Robotheca from COPYING.txt (opens in a new tab) (GPL-3.0-only) at commit 8ab6afd (opens in a new tab), on 16 Oct 2026.
- Commercial use
- Yes
Copyleft: Modified source must be published.
What it does
- Controls airplanes, quadplanes, multirotors, helicopters, rovers, boats, balance bots and submarines.
- Consists of several vehicle firmwares: ArduCopter, ArduPlane, Rover, ArduSub and Antenna Tracker.
- Is continually expanded to support new emerging vehicle types.
- Has a support forum and developer wiki, with an active group of beta testers helping improve the code.
- Maintained by a team of engineers and community contributors, with maintainers responsible for specific vehicles, boards and subsystems.
Written by Robotheca from the project's README (opens in a new tab) at commit 8ab6afd.
Getting started
- Difficulty
- Intermediate
- How to start
- The project's README (opens in a new tab)
Maintenance
- Status
- Active: a commit in the last 90 days
- Newest commit
- 16 Oct 2026 on master
- Latest release
- Plane-4.7.2 (14 Oct 2026)
Checked on GitHub on 16 Oct 2026.
Links
Robots on Robotheca that use it
No robot on Robotheca is linked to it yet. Links come from a robot's robot.yaml, from its dependency files read as text, or from Robotheca's editors.
Robotheca lists software as a reference: nothing is hosted or run here, and every fact links to where it was read.