Drone Programming Primer for Software Development (Udemy.com)

Fly a simulated drone and learn of the open source software projects that are empowering today's drones!

( 137 Reviews )

Created by: Caleb Bergquist

Produced in 2021

What you will learn

Students will gain knowledge of the open source software tools that make up the drones software stack
Know how to develop high level drone applications in python
Be able to test code they write on a simulated vehicle running on their computer
Use this foundational introductory knowledge to investigate more advanced drone software subjects

Quality Score

Content Quality

Video Quality

Qualified Instructor

Course Pace

Course Depth & Coverage

Overall Score : 90 / 100

Course Description

Welcome to the Drone Programming Primer for Software Development, where you will learn of the core open source software projects that are fueling the progression of todays drones! The collection of open source software projects empowering drones (which we will call the flight stack) is transcending its hobbyist roots and is branching out into business applications at a high rate. This is going to translate to demand for drone engineers/developers who understand the open source flight stack. This course will serve to introduce and familiarize you with the flight stack, which includes the following: Firmware (To run the drones hardware) Middleware (Communication glue between projects) API to Firmware (High level commanding of drone with Ground Control Stations and Python scripts)Think of this course as a gateway to becoming a drone engineer/developer. We will cover all of the layers of the flight stack, with slightly more focus on the API to Firmware layer. We will use a simulated drone as our test vehicle, so you can start drone coding right from your computer!
There are 5 main sections that contain over 3 hours of total video content. Each topic contains: A high-level introduction to the subject A low-level dive into the details and application of the subjectHere are some of the topics that you will learn about in this course Understanding of the importance for each component that makes up the flight stack The open source autopilot software project of ArduPilot How to fly a simulated drone from your computer running the ArduPilot codebase MAVLink middleware and how it is used as a communication glue in the flight stack Ground Control Stations and how they use MAVLink to interact with drones Python scripts that use DroneKit and model your drone as an OOP object in a python script, allowing you to command a real drone from pythonThis course is not appropriate non-motivated non-technical peopleThis course assumes that you have some prerequisite knowledge of very basic Linux command line commands (like cd, mkdir, ls etc). There are plenty of online sources for getting up to speed if you are interested in drones but lack this knowledge. Basic python knowledge will also be useful once we get into the last section of the course (dronekit). You must know about the basic tabbing rules and syntax in python, and knowledge of how to make functions will be a plus as well. However, all python scripts in this course will be shown in the videos, allowing you to follow along without python knowledge should you be so brave. If you have basic programming knowledge, picking up the python syntax should only take about 30 minutes for a basic understanding. What about required tools to follow along in this course?
All you need is a computer! The software tools we will be using and learning about are absolutely free, and we will be testing our code on a simulated drone. Should you join right now?
Check out the free lectures first and see if you think this course is right for you. We offer a 30 day money back guarantee on this course, so you can always return it if you decide later the course wasnt for you.
Who is the target audience?
Anyone falling into the below three sections who want to obtain knowledge on the open source drone software projects that will make them valuable assets to the drone industry.
1. Experienced Engineers/Developers looking to pivot their skillsets into tomorrows high growth job market of drones2. Hobbyist or Coders with cool drone DIY projects in mind3. Motivated non technical people who can independently learn the basic Linux and python knowledge to best follow along with this courseWho this course is for:
Engineers or Developers looking to retool their skills for drone software developmentHobbyists or Hackers with cool DIY drone projects in mind who want to learn more about open source drone softwareAnyone who is motivated and wants to learn how to start coding with drones

Time: 3.5h

Instructor Details

Caleb Bergquist

4.5 Rating
137 Reviews

Caleb Bergquist feels very uncomfortable with writing about himself, but he hopes you will pretend to read the rest of this while thinking he did not write this himself, and not judge him for his self-bloviating autobiography camouflaged as a biography. He digresses. Caleb Bergquist has a BS in Chemical Engineering from the University of Tulsa, and currently works as a DevOps engineer at a software company by day. By night, he is a hobbyist/tinkerer in many areas, but has been magnetized towards all things drones, from hardware to software. The trend here is that there is no trend. Ive.. I mean, he has spent much time binge-learning of the myriad of open source projects that are fueling the development of the drone space, and wishes to lower the barrier of entry to these subjects for those coming behind him. He wishes to do this by combining his experience as an instructor, with the democratization of the knowledge hes accumulated on the fringes of new technologies.

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4.5

137 total reviews

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By Lim pan sheng on 11/7/2020

Too surface for the lesson so far

By Yanko Aleksandrov on 11/1/2020

Great. Do we have something like drone kit but for golang?

By Paritosh Shinde on 10/26/2020

It has been a good experience going through this course. Hope to build my knowledge by practicing and exploring stack components and the associated documentation.

By Mats Irwert on 9/27/2020

Good course. Nice introduction to the world of high level drone sw with a good overview of how to set it up and what it is possible to achive with a small effort. The course material is good but a bit out of date as the setup recomended through the lectures will not work of the bat due to updated dependencies not accounted for by the course. To compensate for the deviations you will either need some insight into the environment setup to all allow you make some educated decisions on how to bridge the gaps or use the shortcut offered by the course and use the prepopulated Ubuntu VM environment included in the course material where everything hopefully works as presented.
There is a Q&A section, but there seems to be alot of open questions left unanswered and mostly the response is from other course participants so the if in need, the support seems "limited".

By Rupesh Parameswaran on 9/26/2020

It was nice

By Guillermo Mejia on 9/23/2020

This was the perfect course to continue on developing my abilities.

By Jose Alfredo Rosas Cordova on 9/19/2020

The course was absolutely great, a lot of interesting content. Sadly the instructor doesn't seem to be that active anymore.

By John Woodall on 9/17/2020

Good match, yes. Looking forward to this course as Winter sets in.

By Suman Haldar on 9/15/2020

The Questions are not answer by expert rather we have to troubleshoot of our own

By Salahuddin H on 9/15/2020

thanks, i gain a lot of mush knowladeg about drone, and how it work from this course

By Krthan Musugunthan on 9/12/2020

I could've been better if the questions asked in the question portal were attended

By Ronald Jurgs on 9/11/2020

So far the experience has been good. The software components are well abstracted and explained. I have a few problems implementing SITL and getting it to work but subsequent videos have given me some direction on how to troubleshoot the situation. I've setup my own Linux computer and have gotten close to the configuration you have in this course. Good progress is being made.