All organizations · GSoC 2026 · Science and medicine, End user applications

ArduPilot

World's most advanced autonomous vehicle software

ArduPilot is the world's most widely used open source flight code software for unmanned autonomous vehicles including planes, multicopters, helicopters, cars, boats, submarines, blimps, antenna trackers and much more. Written primarily in C++, ArduPilot supports over 100 different types of autopilot hardware including the well known Pixhawk autopilot. Our team motto, "Versatile, Trusted, Open" reflects our team's aim to provide high quality autopilot software that reliably supports a huge variety of frames, sensors and use cases. The software is open but so is the team, always welcoming of new contributors whether they be software developers, wiki documentors, testers or users.

python
lua
c++
pixhawk

robotics
ai
Drone
autonomous vehicle
unmanned vehicle

Project ideas

6 ideas on its 2026 ideas page; of the 5 that state a difficulty: 2 medium, 3 hard. Sizes: 2 medium, 3 large. 2 mentors named.

SITL Model Generation from Flight Data¶ large hard
Multi-Drone Mesh Networking (MAVLink-aware)¶ large hard
ArduHumanoid (ArduPilot controlling a simple humanoid)¶ medium medium
AI-Assisted Log Diagnosis & Root-Cause Detection¶ large hard
Real-Time Companion-Computer Health Monitoring & Failsafe¶ medium medium
Projects Completed in past years¶

Read the ideas page. Ideas are for scope reference; never copy one into a proposal.

History

In GSoC since 2017, 10 years. Projects per year: '17: 3, '18: 5, '19: 5, '20: 5, '21: 3, '22: 4, '23: 4, '24: 4, '25: 5, '26: 3.

On GitHub

28 repositories pushed to in the last year. Main languages: Python (8), C++ (5), JavaScript (5), C (4), HTML (2), TypeScript (2).

Links and channels

Website: https://ardupilot.org/
Ideas page: https://ardupilot.org/dev/docs/gsoc-ideas-list.html
Contributor guide: https://ardupilot.org/dev/docs/gsoc.html
Source code: https://github.com/ArduPilot
Chat: https://discord.com/channels/674039678562861068/805671364873682954
Mailing list: https://discuss.ardupilot.org/c/google-summer-of-code/131

go deeper in your terminal

git-into-gsoc org "ArduPilot" --shortlist
git-into-gsoc repos "ArduPilot"
git-into-gsoc issues --org "ArduPilot"

or ask your assistant:
"Which ArduPilot repositories merge
newcomers' pull requests, and which beginner
issues are still free?"

Those commands read live data: which repositories merge outside pull requests, and which beginner issues nobody has claimed. Install in two minutes.