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Fusion Engineering on using Rust for drone flight controllers

• deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
• mre 2y ago
  I interviewed Fusion Engineering about using Rust for drone controllers. Some things surprised me: - Their approach is closer to game development than I expected; same focus on predictable performance. - They run their main loop at 1kHz on Linux. Hardware is a Compute Module 4 from Raspberry Pi. - Non-software engineers on their team picked up Rust quickly. That's not what you usually hear about Rust. - They can handle a rotor failing mid-flight. The drone keeps flying. They open-sourced some interesting crates too. Worth checking out if you're into embedded Rust. Links in the show notes.
  • eimrine 2y ago
    > their main loop at 1kHz on Linux So, the camera is not a part of the main loop?
    • mre 2y ago
      Good question. I asked Jakub, and he said they don't currently use camera feed in their flight controller. The video feed is routed outside the flight controller through a telemetry module.