ESCs and Motors

ArduPilot supports a wide variety of ESCs, motors, and Electronic Fuel systems. The pages below provide setup instructions for the most popular types

Motors

• Brushed motors and ESCs
• Thrusters (for boats)
• Torqeedo Electric Motor (for boats)
• Trolling motors

ESC for Brushless Motors

ESCs (Electronic Speed Controls) have many different protocols for communicating with the autopilot for motor speed control, and and can also provide telemetry information on motor rpm, battery voltage. The capabilities will vary with each individual ESC model. Some ESCs have specialized firmware that allows easy configuration of operating parameters. The following sections explain the required ArduPilot setup to utilize the protocols, telemetry, and setup programs that various ESCs utilize. See ESC (Electronic Speed Controls) for a guide to terminology.

Protocols

• PWM, OneShot and OneShot125 ESCs
• DShot ESCs
• DroneCAN ESCs
• Currawong Velocity PiccoloCAN ESCs
• KDE CAN ESCs
• FETtec OneWire ESCs

ESCs using BLHeli32, AM32, or BLHeli-S Configuration Firmware

• ARK 4IN1 ESC
• BLHeli/BLHeli32/AM32 Capable ESCs

Telemetry

• ESC Telemetry
• Hobbywing Telemetry Hub (DatalinkV2)(uses LUA driver)

Note

Currently ArduPilot only supports telemetry on BLHeli or DroneCAN/CAN ESCs, not throttle signal wire reported telemetry that some single unit ESCs report.

ESC wiring and Large QuadPlane ESC Issues

• ESC Grounding and Wiring Considerations
• ESC Signalling Issues
• ESC Terminology