Meet the Contributor
My hobbies next to drones: Motorcycle tours, Kitesurfing, Snowboarding and lately Paragliding
Questions
Can you tell us the story of how you got into PX4?
I developed my own autopilot as a hobby 2012-2015, got in touch with PX4 through multiple university theses at ETH Zürich in 2015-2016, worked with PX4 in my job since end of 2016 until now.
What company do you work for and what’s your “day role”?
I work for Auterion as a flight control software engineer. I use, maintain and improve PX4 for different product use cases.
What is your current project based on PX4?
What is your professional and educational background?
Electrical Engineering Master from ETH Zürich focus on Embedded Systems and Control.
What is your “area of expertise” within PX4?
Multicopter controllers: position, attitude & rate; mixer; takeoff and land logic; flight tasks; battery estimation; Windows support; a lot of random smaller things.
What is the most unique thing you have done in drones/robotics?
Developed a quadcopter completely from scratch. From the hand-made alloy frame over soldering each and every sensor and connector to programming all drivers, basic estimation and control until it was flyable for my needs at the time. Not unique as an idea but I learned an awful lot from that private project.
What is your current favourite setup for development kit?
Largely depends on the requirements. Since I’m mostly interested in multicopter flight control I’d use:
DIY/Custom
Kit:
Since I’m most productive on Windows I use the following setups:
What languages do you speak?
German, English, French (a bit)
Where are you from and where did you grow up?
Switzerland, lived in multiple places close to Zürich, Bern, Luzern, St. Gallen
What advice would you give to fellow drone developers who just joined the PX4 community?
It’s no sorcery. If there’s something missing, please contribute it. Contributing documentation matters equally. Everyone including you will profit. And finally safety first: Try basic things with props off first and always have a backup plan.