I have seen the article on how to use a RasberryPi and mavlink throughmission planner to bridge mavlink and WIFI to run missions. What I wondering is if it is possible to use the Mavlink as just a 900mhz bridge?
With multiple cameras now supporting WiFi management (zoom, trigger, mode change, etc) I am looking for a way to bridge a ground stations webbrowser to the webserver running on the camera located on a UAV.
Ideally if you can find a way to map an IP/PORT to the serial port already established for the mavlink, you would not need wifi on the client end and you would only need a way on the UAV end to convert the mavlink com port to IP/WiFi?
Maybe use RaberryPi on the drone end to link the mavlink COM port to IP out out a WiFi usb nic to the camera?
Thoughts?
Replies
obviously I put this in the wrong forum based on the lack of responses. Can someone let me know where I need to put this to get an answer?
So how the camera control works is that the camera has a web server running that connects to a wifi network and gets an IP address. You then use a web browser on a client on the same network (PC/iPad/iPhone/etc) to connect to the web server on the camera and manipulate the controls (mode, zoom, shutter, etc). While the uav is within 50yards this works fine. Beyond the 50yarda the signal of wifi no longer works.
So, since I already have a long range data communication link to the uav with 3dr radio and mavlink - I am looking for a way to take those wifi web browser packets on the ground station and direct them over the 3dr/mavlink link and then once at the uav, have something convert them back to a wifi tcp/ip packet so the camera can pick them up.
if you are asking for IP encapsulation and transfer over 3DR radios using mavlink, then that would be very inefficient (not to mention the bandwidth the webpage could require, especially if it streams/previews video)
Usually it's the other way around, you get a fast and long range link that run IP natively, then put mavlink thru that.
So a thought was if I can have the traffic generated from the web browser on the groundstation be encapsulated in mavlink packets and sent to the uav over the 900mhz band and then un encapsulated on the uav and broadcast out over wifi (2.4) to the onboard camera.
sure, not a problem, that's what MAV_CMD_DO_DIGICAM_CONFIGURE, MAV_CMD_DO_DIGICAM_CONTROL, and MAV_CMD_DO_CONTROL_VIDEO mavlink messages are for, or, you can even inject your own messages.
It's not really anything new, and works well. (the actual control-interface on UAV side, needs to be based on a microcontroller or a onboard computer, that reads mavlink, or: you can just add the code to autopilot hardware and make it do that as well, unless you need PTP or other complex command protocol)
because I, for instance, don't understand what you are actually trying to do/ask
you write "use the Mavlink as just a 900mhz bridge" does not make sense, Mavlink is a serial protocol, you cannot use it "as a frequency"
Anyway - Mavlink can be transported across any suitable link, so yes, you can easily use a onboard computer to convert it from TTL level RS232 to TCP or UDP, and every decent GCS will read your IP packets, acting as server or client.