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Question: Can an Xbee be used as a radio TX?

Posted by Chase Hall on May 10, 2012 at 7:33am

Hello All,

First understand the nature of my situation (i.e. why I don't just use a standard radio TX). I am wanting to  put a camera on a quad-copter (Arducopter w/APM) and send the video back to a PC for high level image processing (via a standard video RX/TX). I also am having the Telemetry data from the Quad come back to the same PC (via an Xbee) for further processing and integration. I am flying the quad using a standard RF TX/RX using the quad's input ports.

I would love to be able to send flight controls (pitch, roll, yaw, throttle; CH1-4) up to the quad via an Xbee and have the RF RX receive it.

So my question is, Can an Xbee send up RF commands to a standard radio RX?

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Replies

  • wilfrid.babilas May 10, 2012 at 10:50am

    I use a connection XBee pro 2.7Ghz for 6 months, for controle my Drone.
    I have create my own Controle Box ( WBCommander) with an UC Arduino Mega.
    In 57Kbd, it works very fine, and I take advantage of the télémetry :)

    WBCommander Picture

  • Vernon Barry May 10, 2012 at 9:59am

    No, "you are doing it wrong" as they say. Mission planner has the capability to provide joystick control to the heli over the telemetry link. One thing was quickly discovered that Xbee (specifically Xbee Pros) are not fast enough to do this reliably. It can be done, just not optimal. Further, the newer 3DR 900MHz radios and in theory the 433Mhz radios are much better at this type of link. The problem with the Xbees truely is throughput. While they work great for telemetry only data and minor adjustments, we know you cannot update the APM firmware and a number of other functions that are known to not work. The new 3DR radios are much faster. So what I'm saying is, sure you can try it but don't expect great success with your current hardware. If you upgrade to 3DR radios, you will have much better luck.

    Here is a blog post on the "how" http://diydrones.com/profiles/blog/show?id=705844%3ABlogPost%3A7114...

    Be sure to read the last pages as there are a lot of good discussions and info regarding the bandwidth requirements which I was hinting at. Further, there is good discussion on using dual Xbee links, but as I said, the new 3DR radios are better than Xbee and cheaper, so they are pretty much your upgrade path in order to do this effectively.

    Hope this gets you closer to the answer.

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