dRehmflight
An open-source flight controller and stabilization system for small-scale VTOL vehicles, built on Arduino/Teensy for hobbyists and educators.
What is dRehmflight?
dRehmFlight is an open-source flight controller and stabilization system designed for small-scale Vertical Take-Off and Landing (VTOL) vehicles. It runs on Arduino-compatible Teensy microcontrollers and provides attitude stabilization and control logic for hobbyist drones and experimental aircraft. The project solves the problem of complex, opaque flight control code by offering an intuitive, all-in-one codebase that is easy to understand and modify.
RC hobbyists, university students, educators, and makers who are building custom VTOL drones or aerial vehicles and want to learn or implement flight stabilization without dealing with overly complex commercial systems.
Developers choose dRehmFlight because it demystifies flight control code with a clean, well-documented codebase that is easy to modify, uses affordable and accessible hardware, and serves as an excellent educational tool for understanding VTOL stabilization principles.
Overview
Teensy/Arduino flight controller and stabilization for small-scale VTOL vehicles
Use Cases
Best For
- Building custom VTOL drones from scratch with accessible hardware
- Learning flight control and stabilization concepts in an educational setting
- Rapid prototyping of unique or experimental aerial vehicle designs
- Hobbyists wanting to modify and understand flight controller code directly
- University projects or workshops focused on drone and UAV development
- Creating stabilized platforms for RC model aircraft with unconventional configurations
Not Ideal For
- Commercial drone development requiring FAA certification or high-reliability systems
- Projects needing advanced autonomous features like GPS waypoint navigation or sensor fusion beyond IMU
- Teams wanting plug-and-play flight controllers with zero code modification or Arduino knowledge
- Applications where real-time operating systems or multi-threading are essential for complex control algorithms
Pros & Cons
Pros
Uses Teensy microcontrollers with the Arduino IDE, eliminating complex flashing processes and making it accessible to anyone familiar with basic Arduino programming.
Code is written to be intuitive and easy to follow, serving as a teaching tool for flight control principles, as evidenced by its use in universities and tech companies.
Designed for quick iteration; users can modify code directly for specific VTOL applications without navigating complex class hierarchies, as highlighted in the overview.
Includes PDF documentation and tutorial videos covering hardware build, radio setup, and code walkthroughs, providing extensive support for learners and builders.
Cons
Relies solely on MPU6050 IMU, with no built-in support for advanced sensors like GPS, barometers, or magnetometers, restricting autonomous capabilities.
Tightly coupled with Teensy microcontrollers; switching to other platforms requires significant code changes, reducing flexibility for alternative hardware.
Project is in beta with ongoing bug fixes (e.g., motor arming bug in Beta 1.3), making it less reliable for production or critical flight applications.
Frequently Asked Questions
Related Projects
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Paparazzi UAVPaparazzi is a free and open-source hardware and software project for unmanned (air) vehicles. This is the main software repository.
BaseFlight32 bit fork of the MultiWii RC flight controller firmware
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