I’ve been flying various incarnations of software on my almost 3 year old Arducopter and never felt comfortable enough to trust flying it by video signal alone – until now. The inertial positioning in horizontal and vertical is really good and feels rock solid under fpv. The “return home feature – rtl” is also very reliable now and I trust if I loose video signal, I can get home. I flew 12 flights totally under fpv the weekend of 7/13/2013 and had great success. I invoked multiple rtls – at least one every flight and a total of 15 or so over the weekend. I was also using a beta iPhone app to watch flight values and battery condition with voice warnings of low battery etc. Here is video of one of the flights at my in-law’s farm:
Category Archives: Software
Updated Mavlink 1.0 to Remzibi OSD Converter Software
I’ve been continuing to use my Remzibi OSD with my Arductoper quad and ACM version 2.7.3. I haven’t released this software in a while for the few who may still be wanting to use Remzibi OSD so I’m attaching the software to this post. This is the source code for the converter and needs to be compiled with Arduino 1.0.1.
Here is a link to the original article. Mavlink to Remzibi Howto
Modified Ardustation 2 Software Now Available
has my updated blog post.
I’ve updated the Ardustation 2 source code to allow compilation with Arduino 1.0 Relax and the latest libraries for ACM 2.5.3 and APM 2.3.0. This update also includes a modification of parameter names for PID editing that match ACM and APM. The updated version is 2.0.12.
The download zip file also includes the libraries used to verify compilation of the software. The software has been lightly tested with ACM and 2.5.3 and has not been tested with APM 2.3.0. If you find any issues feel free to comment here or post an issue at the Ardustation 2 Google
The software is available here:
http://code.google.com/p/ardustation-ii/downloads/list
Download 2.0.12 for ACM 2.5.3 or APM 2.3.0 – compile with Arduino 1.0 Relax
Download 2.0.11 for ACM 2.0.48 or APM 2.24 – compile with Arduino 0022 Relax
Using the DIYDrones Ardustation with a Tilt/Pan Video Antenna, Mavlink, Parameter Editing, and the Arducopter/ArduPlane
My Arducopter has a 1.280 Ghz video transmitter and camera for sending live video down to a groundstation. Initially I used a fixed ground antenna to match an onboard dipole transmitter antenna and found that multipath was a severe problem when flying in an area with many structures. The ground antenna is a high gain patch and isolates the multipath if it is pointed directly at the Arducopter in flight. Having seen tilt/pan antennas for FPV and UAVs on the Internet, I started looking for a inexpensive solution that could use the datalink transmitted GPS location information to point my high gain patch at the quad during flight. My search led me to an inexpensive tilt/pan antenna system from readymaderc.com:
Antenna Pan/Tilt for EagleEyes Antenna Tracker
This tilt/pan assembly comes by default with Hitec HS-485HB servos which have enough torque to operate my patch antenna and video receiver. Once installed, the servos are geared to operate from 0 to 90 degrees in tilt and 360 degrees of pan. One disadvantage is that the assembly must rotate a full 360 degrees when exceeding the stop in either direction although this happens very quickly in my experience.
To operate the Tilt/Pan assembly, I have modified Phillip Anthony Smith’s Mavlink Ardustation software to include tilt/pan commands driven by received Mavlink GPS position. RAM is very tight in the code and is focused on APM, but I manged to add a few new screens to output tilt/pan info and set/display home information for the antenna location. I had to remove APM pid modification screens to make my changes fit in RAM. This is problematic if you want a complete replacement for a ground station, but it was not a problem for me since I also use a second Xbee with a notebook to monitor the Arducopter. I just use the Ardustation for antenna positioning. I’ve also added code to position the location of the pan stop to the least obtrusive position at the flying site. The following video shows the readmaderc.com antenna tracker in operation and some tips for using the software. The software can be downloaded here for others to modify or use as they see fit.
Note: The libraries distributed with versions of Arducopter 2.0.40 and later will get compilation errors due to changes in the Mavlink headers within the library. You can compile with the library contained in the Arducopter 2.0.36 source code distribution and the Ardustation software will still work with Arducopter 2.0.40 to 2.0.46. I’m working on source code changes to allow compilation with the modified Mavlink libraries.
A new version has been released that fully supports Arducopter and ArduPlane, parameter editing, antenna tracking, and autodetection of which platform is connected. This version also compiles with the latest libraries in ArduPlane 2.24 and Arducopter 2.0.48/49. The latest Ardustation 2 software is 2.0.11.
New development and fixes for source here
Original ArdustationPSTilt/Pan Arduino Source