Revo (OpenPilot Revolution) and Sparky2 (TauLabs Sparky 2.0) FC's have a 433mhz transceiver built in for data telemetry and control. You get an OpenPilot OpLink to plug in USB on the laptop. The laptop program is called the GCS (ground control station) and does everything from configuration changes to watching the GPS position on a satellite map to controlling the aircraft with a joystick (an advanced topic).
First of all make sure 433mhz radio is legal in your country. If not, you will need to swap out the 433 transceiver or buy a different telemetry / control set.
So the FC can accept control and give telemetry through serial (etc.) ports on the FC.
LibrePilot can accept control from the built in 433mhz or from anything that acts like a standard RC receiver. That means that you can, for instance, put a small computer on board that puts out an RC receiver signal to control the FC.
Better yet is to have the computer see telemetry too, so it can see where the aircraft is.
There are a few people who are experimenting with controlling it with different programming languages. I suggest that you read through the threads in the development section at the bottom of the forum page.
So there are actually many ways to control the aircraft with a computer:
- built in 433mhz transceiver
- external transceiver
- GCS via transceiver
- your own program on a laptop via transceiver
- on board computer that pretends to be any of many RC receiver types
- simple on board computer that pretends to be any of many RC receiver types but talks to laptop via wifi and laptop has the smart program in it
- computer talks to RC transmitter with RC receiver in aircraft (you need to set up telemetry too to see position, etc.)
- etc
You have a long road ahead. I suggest that you begin by getting a Revo class FC with GPS flying without GPS enabled, then enable GPS and get it flying with VelocityRoam flight mode. This flight mode does position hold if sticks are in center, or flies with speed proportional to stick position when not in center.