In this lesson, we'll overview the ground control software, LibrePilot. After completing this lesson, you'll be able to install the software, connect the flight controller, and preview the software. Now we want to get into the details of how to setup our flight controller, as well as our controller, to do all the things that we need in order to fly our design. We've already talked about how to assemble the entire quadcopter. But in order to program the flight controller, we need to have access to the micro USB port on the side of it. Now, if you're following along with this build or you're building your own using the same micro CC3D, that's something that is good to account for. Now, our specific design doesn't have an external USB incorporated in it, but if it's something that you need to constantly do to update your flight control or make adjustments, that's something that you do want to factor into the programming and design phase of it. And you might be wondering why we put it together and now we're taking it back apart to program the flight controller. Well, when you have a quadcopter design, in general, you're probably going to be taking it apart several times in order to get the configuration right. Now, in our case, I wanted to make sure we understand the entire assembly process. And now we're going to talk about setting up the controller. Now, I don't expect everyone to be building the same exact design, so really the important thing here is just to understand the process so you can apply it to yours. The ground control software that we're going to be using is called LibrePilot. Now, this is free. It's open source. You can download it from their website. There are also plenty of other options out there. So, just because we're using this one, doesn't necessarily mean that you have to. But we're going to be using this one because again it is free, it's open source, and it's very easy to use. So the first step is connecting your USB cable to the flight controller, and you want to make sure that the flight controller is still in the component tray and sitting flat on your desk or a work surface. Then, I'm going to plug the USB into my computer, and it's going to take a second, but the software is going to recognize that connection and then we'll be able to connect the software to it. So, once we're connected, you'll now see a TX and RX for transmit and receive. And now, the connect button says, "Disconnect." You also notice it says, "USB CopterControl." Now, CC and micro CC3D is CopterControl. So, from here, there are a few things we can do. We have some large buttons on the screen and we also have the same options down at the bottom. We have flight data that will allow us to see the pitch, yaw, as well as tilt. You can see a preview on the lower left hand corner. Now, this is great because we can actually take a look at a lot of things. For instance, if we have GPS, if we are looking at telemetry, for instance, if you're connected via a wireless connection, you can actually take a look at where it's flying and the direction it's flying, as well as some of the parameters depending on what kinds of telemetry data you have access to. We also have configurations. And this is going to allow us to see things like, how we want our inputs to be from the controller. For instance, we have Accessory0 set up to Channel 5, and this is what we're going to use to control the tilt of the camera. We can see our controller inputs, and this is going to allow us to see what each specific input is going to do and how it's going to adjust the throttle, the pitch, and the yaw. But that only works assuming that we have a battery hooked up to our quad copter, and in this case, we're only powering it off the USB. We also have a screen for outputs, and we have four motor outputs, and then we have a fifth output for Acessory0, and this is going to determine the output that goes directly to, on this case, our tilt servo for our camera. We have attitude information, which will allow us to reset the gyros and the accelerometers. So, that way, it knows what level is and it can try to compensate for that. We have a stabilization section, and here is where we can determine how specifically we want it to respond to controller inputs. Now, we're going to leave everything at moderate. And we're not going to adjust this because it's a good idea to get really familiar with your device before you try to program in some of these different configurations. And you really need to get used to it on a linear setting, which means that you move the controller stick up 50 percent, and you get 50 percent output. If you start to mess with some of these parameters to the point where the first 25 percent is fairly slow to respond in the output and then it ramps up, it can be really difficult for you to get control of the vehicle. There is also a section for Gimbal, which we will not be using. We could set up our tilt servo so that it uses the gyroscope inside of the flight controller, and it can automatically tilt up and down on our camera as opposed to having manual control. Now, this specific software does not allow us to do both, it does not allow us to have it automatically adjust the tilt of our camera, as well as allowing us to manually adjust it. So we sort of have to pick one or the other. Let's go back to the welcome screen, and let's walk through the vehicle setup wizard so you can see how to set up your own.
