Comment by Tom Pittenger on January 3, 2011 at 10:29pm

@Happy,

So I got around to working on this finally. 1.1.30 works great! DNS works and it actually gets the data from the plane and does as it's expected. Great job! Now the IP port is in use so I can't send my joystick data to it! hahah Not your fault though. I was about to load in multi-port support (or multi-session on same port) on my UDB until I got the great idea to just add joystick support to GCS.

 

This leads us to a crossroads.

 

Do you want joystick support in GCS? Seems kind of.. uhm.. tempting for everyone to actually use it. Hard to pull off the "we don't intend anyone to use it like this" when all the pieces are in one place. If the joystick app stays separate if feels "safer" for some reason.

 

That said, I downloaded the latest GCS trunk from svn and got started on the joystick interface! Then I realized you haven't checked out your copy since last year! (har har). 1.1.20 is the latest on svn and that was pre-IP era. Could you update your copy pretty please?

 

For now I'll do multi-port/session support on my firmware and we'll go from there.

 

-Tom

Comment by Paul Mather on January 4, 2011 at 6:06am

Sure Tom, but I've actaully already got the Joystick interface working. I haven't finished the graphics part to show the stick locations but I've got the background code already. I haven't looked into the UDB protocol to see what the commands are to make the UDB move the control surfaces....and I'll upload my latest source.

Comment by Tom Pittenger on January 4, 2011 at 10:11am

There is no UDB protocol for the joystick, I made my own. In fact there is no protocol for ground to plane communications. You can implement this one for now if you'd like, it is a joystick-only type of thing just to get it working which is what I used. We're planning on adding a whole bi-directional interface, maybe MavLink? Not sure. We want to set trims, adjust PID values, control a camera, assign waypoints ect ect from the ground in mid-flight.

 

It's nice of you to do all the source work but I was hoping to at least help! :)

 

Temporary Joystick-only Protocol for UDB:

Header is ASCII chars "Joy" then 5 x 16bit binary vars of PWM values followed by \r\n (CRLF), 15 byte packet. Binary PWM data is MSB first. I was doing 10Hz uploads but I found it nice to have the rate adjustable. PWM value range is from 2200 to 3800, so that's a neutral joystick at 3000 with +/- 800 axis movement. You are probably getting 16 bit data for joystick data, so did I. If so, here are my conversion. First I converted 0 - 65535 to +/- 100 to give me a value useful for debugging, but then used that same value to create PWM numbers (at a slightly lower resolution). Meh, no big deal.

x = jyst.state.X;  // values are 0 to 65525

x -= Joy_centerX; // offset to +-/ 32k, this was the value of the x axis on program start

x = (x * 100) / (65535 / 2); // convert to +/- 100

ailerons = (x * 8) + 3000; // convert to 3000 +/- 800

 

Mode PWM values:

2400 for passthru (pure joystick)

3000 for Pilot Assit (joystick flight with stabilization)

3600 for waypoint guided autonomous

 

Packet:

// [0,1,2] = "Joy" Header 

// [3,4] = AILERON_INPUT_CHANNEL (MSB,LSB)

// [5,6] = ELEVATOR_INPUT_CHANNEL (MSB,LSB)

// [7,8] = MODE_SWITCH_INPUT_CHANNEL (MSB,LSB)

// [9,10] = RUDDER_INPUT_CHANNEL (MSB,LSB)

// [11,12] = THROTTLE_INPUT_CHANNEL (MSB,LSB)

// [13,14]= "\r\n"

Comment by Danny Lombard on January 14, 2011 at 3:58am

Hi Tom

 

I must say impressive work I have a question though have you ever tried running telemetry using a mobile connection say on the ardupilot mega board?

Comment by Tom Pittenger on January 14, 2011 at 10:23am

@Danny, Nope. I like the Microchip library set. Atmel doesn't like to directly support their chips. I'm not a fan.

Comment

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• 2
• 3
• Next ›
• Page