Hello. I want to build my own flight computer with some simple sensors on board to start out. I have read a lot about Arduino, which at first for me sounded good. However, I read its not c++, more of a mutant version of it. If I want to code a flight computer with c++ (and not the 'mutant' version arduino), how would I go about this. I can't find anything online about controlling hardware or flight computers with anything other than Raspberry Pi (Python) or Arduino.
I’m using the STM32F “Blue Pill” for my flight computer with the Arduino IDE.
Its amazingly powerful, smaller, costs under $20, and fully works with all of the GPS, altimeter, SD card, inertial guidance 9dof accelerometers, and 915Mhz transmitter modules and their Arduino C++ libraries. As a former professional firmware developer, that’s all I could ask for for a hobby project.
Unless you have years with C/C++, the Arduino IDE greatly simplifies things for you and the added *.h and *.cpp code files to a project are true C++. Under the hood, all of the libraries you use for every added module are C++, with full classes and inheritance.
The Arduino IDE hides the C++ details from most users who would be lost with it, and its the pain to access with Notepad++, but its fully supported.
I’d also be interested in an Eclipse firmware development platform that could be used to “#include” the “Arduino pde” and all of the C++ libraries into a full buildable project with the same firmware footprint that the Arduino IDE generates. That would permit the full code navigation, compiling and debugging with breakpoints, single-stepping that I was familiar with as a professional firmware engineer. I’d bet dollar to doughnuts that people who professionally develop the complex code libraries for Arduino modules don’t shackle themselves with the limitations of the Arduino IDE, except for the final release test phase.