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This video describes shortly the hardware and software aspects of my self-made tracking drone. The major parts are: a holybro frame, a pixhaxk 6c flight controller, a raspberry pi 4, a oak-d camera and 8 sensors (gps, lidar, compass, ...). The tracking relies on a fine-tuned YOLOv8 object detector and a custom python tracking code. The yaw and the pitch of the drone are derived form the height and center of the detected object. A simple obstacle detection derived from the oak-d stereo camera's, prevents the drone of crashing into obstacles closer than 3m.

As we know, Turkey is one of important international grain exporter. To enhance agricultural productivity and promote green farming, it is actively adopting agricultural drone technology and supporting local production. EFT, as a global drone solution provider, develop with local Turkish drone companies, offering comprehensive agri drone solutions and component support to advance agricultural drone technology and promotes the drone applications for local fields. 

PX4 has its own unique advantages; it is preferred and liked by the majority of users. The TF series is a highly cost-effective LiDAR launched by Benewake, which is sought after by the majority of drone users. This tutorial introduces the connection method of TF series PixHawk and configuring over the PX4 firmware. The same procedure can be followed for other flight controllers as long as the right physical port is used. This document is based on QGroundControl v4.0.6 and firmware PX4 v1.11.0. If the ground station or firmware is not fully functional, please upgrade。

1 Hardware Connection

This article uses Pixhawk as an example to illustrate the connection, as shown below：

Please install the TF Series LiDAR on the multi-rotor, vertically downwards, and ensure that there are no obstacles in front of the lens. Then configure the software settings:

• Under Settings--Parameters--EKF2--EKF2_RNG_AID, select Range aid enabled, as shown below：

User-defined settings：

• EKF2_RNG_A_VMAX：The maximum horizontal speed trigger value of multi-rotor using TF series as range finder, it means that TF series LiDAR will become active only when the flight speed is lower than this value. The default value is 1m/s, the minimum value is 0.1m/s, and the maximum value is 2m/s.
• EKF2_RNG_A_HMAX：The maximum altitude trigger value of TF series based multi-rotor, which means that TF series will become active only when the flying altitude is less than this value. The default value is 5m, the minimum value is 1m, and the maximum value is 10m.
• Turn on LiDAR options：UnderSetting--Sensors--SENS TFMINI CFG, select TELEM2 (this port can be changed if you are using another serial port), as shown below：

Note：If this option is not available, you need to download the source program from the official website and change the default.cmake file of the corresponding board.

https://dev.px4.io/master/en/

File location：PX4\Firmware\boards\px4\fmu-v2\default.cmake, fmu-v2 is the corresponding flight control board; please refer to the official tutorial link below for details.

Change the content：Need to add distance_sensor/tfmini

After completing the above steps, please restart the flight controller and QGroundControl. There is a LiDAR value display on the main interface, as shown below：

From spraying to spreading and seeding, the Z30 has demonstrated its capabilities in action. Check out the video and watch how fast and stable the Z30 can be!

Note:This is the High Performance 6S version which includes a 3668-1960Kv inrunner motor with 12-blade EDF and a thrust reversing 120A ESC. just add your own battery with EC5 Connector to begin flying.

in 2024,The Freewing F-16 V2 90mm EDF 6s PNP Jet from Freewing Model showcases a range of performance and design upgrades that elevate realism, flight capability, and convenience. Featuring a striking 64th Aggressors Livery, this model honors the distinguished 64th Aggressor Squadron, part of the legendary Aggressor program initiated in 1972. This squadron played a crucial role in training pilots through dissimilar air combat tactics, emulating potential adversaries.

With quick-release wings, an easier fuselage assembly, and a slide rail system for armament, the updated F-16C 90mm prioritizes ease of use. Additionally, the scale appeal and functionality have reached new heights with fully functional, servo-driven air brakes, updated scale details, extra molded-in rivets, painted landing gear, and other intricate detail components. The Freewing F-16C 90mm is designed to impress.

The new power system, featuring a 3668-1980Kv inrunner motor and a 12-blade EDF, delivers exceptional speed and power for long vertical climbs and rapid show passes over the runway. It also includes reverse thrust for short landing rollouts.

Experience the thrill and precision of the Freewing F-16 V2 90mm EDF is a true tribute to its full-scale counterpart, bringing advanced aerodynamics and stunning detail to your collection.

64th Aggressor Squadron Livery

Featuring an iconic 64th Aggressor Squadron livery, the Freewing F-16 V2 90mm JET showcases the legendary training unit.
Quick Release Wings

Enjoy effortless assembly and disassembly with the innovative quick release wing system.
Scale, Servo-Driven Airbrakes

Enhanced realism with fully functional, servo driven airbrakes that can be controlled from the transmitter.
Updated 3668-1980Kv Power System

Enhanced power and speed with the updated 3668-1980Kv inrunner motor and thrust reversing with the included 120A ESC.
Spring Loaded Cheater Holes

Equipped with spring loaded cheaters that actuate in flight for enhanced in flight performance while maintaining scale appeal on the ground.
Quick Attach Rail System for Armament

Easily install and remove armament with the updated quick attach rail system.
Added Scale Details

Extra molded-in rivets and detailed plastic components elevate the scale realism.
Larger Battery Compartment

Spacious battery compartment to easily accommodate various battery sizes and configurations for 6 or 8S LiPo systems.

Features:
it is 64th Aggressors Camo Livery: A striking, historically inspired camouflage design
it is with Power System: 3668-1980Kv Inrunner Motor with a 90mm 12-blade EDF
it has 120A Brushless ESC with 8A UBEC and Thrust Reversing: Provides reliable and efficient power management as well as thrust reversing capability
Screwless, Quick-Release Main Wings: For easy assembly and transport
Scale, Servo-Driven Air Brakes: Enhances scale realism and performance
Quick Attach Rail System: Simplifies fuel tank and armament attachment
Additional Molded-In Scale Rivet and Panel Details: Adds to the model's scale appeal and authenticity
Increased Battery Compartment Size: Accommodates larger batteries
Plastic Corner Protection: Around the battery compartment and fuselage chines for added durability
Additional Plastic Scale Details Included: Enhances the model's visual appeal
Spring-Loaded Cheater Holes: Improves power, speed, and overall performance
Stronger Landing Gear Mounts and Painted, CNC-Machined Landing Gear: Adds scale aesthetic appeal and adds durability
Spring-Loaded Battery Latch: Secures the battery with ease
Glueless Rear Fuselage Assembly: Simplifies the build process
Officially Licensed by Lockheed Martin
Sequenced gear doors provide added realism and reduced drag
Bright LED navigation and landing lights for enhanced realism and dawn/dusk maneuvers
Carbon fiber wing spars
Ball linkages on all control surfaces
Nylon hinges on all control surfaces

Package Box Includes:

Freewing F-16 V2 90mm EDF Jet 8S PNP Jet

Freewing F-16 V2 90mm EDF 6S PNP Jet

Freewing F-16 V2 90mm EDF ARF Plus Jet

Freewing Zeus V2 90mm 6S PNP EDF Jet

Freewing Zeus V2 90mm 8S PNP EDF JET Airplane

Requires:
6 Channel radio - select a minimum 6 channel radio (8 channels for thrust reversing and gyro mode function)
6 Channel receiver
6 Cell 22.2V 5000 mAh LiPo battery with EC5 connector
6 Cell compatible Lipo battery charger

Freewing F-16 V2 90mm Fighting Falcon EDF Jet 6S PNP RC Airplane Manual Download:

Freewing F-16 V2 90mm Fighting Falcon EDF Jet 6S PNP RC Airplane Manual PDF

To See More images

Benewake TF Series (mini-S, mini-Plus, 02-Pro, Luna) LiDAR can be connected with the IIC port of PixHawk 6C and 6X Flight from HolyBro. There are three IIC ports available on PixHawk 6C:

1. On GPS-1> pin-4: SCL1, pin-5: SDA1;
2. On GPS-2> pin-4: SCL2, pin-5: SDA2;
3. On I2C> pin-2: I2C2_SCL, pin-3: I2C2_SDA;

but by default, data can only be read through I2C port. In order to use other ports some settings will be required like compiling the firmware from source code and directing the data flow to other ports etc., because there are no direct settings available in Ardupilot firmware. In this tutorial we will use I2C port (I2C2_SCL, I2C2_SDA). LiDAR can be interfaced with flight controller for the purpose of Altitude Holding, Obstacle Avoidance or Terrain Following (first two will be explained in this document). At the time of writing this document, the controller used was PixHawk 6C from HolyBro flashed with ArduCopter V4.3.3. However, this document can also be used with PixHawk 6X and other flight controllers running with different ArduCopter firmware versions with slight modification in parameter names and choosing the right port on flight controller. For choosing right port, refer to the port mapping of flight controller in its documentation. Please note that supported firmware of Ardupilot for PixHawk 6C and 6X is 4.2.3 stable release and later.

1. TFSeries LiDAR Settings for IIC Interface:

Note: IIC interface is like interactive mode, you need to send command and receive the response from LiDAR. So, in order to process the command to obtain data-packet, LiDAR needs some processing time. The recommended relation is:

So, if LiDAR frame-rate is 100Hz then external frame-rate (the rate at which you send the command to the LiDAR) should 20Hz. If you need higher external frame-rate then you could increase LiDAR internal frame-rate by sending commands and following the above relation. Please refer to the manual of respective LiDAR. However, this is required if there are fluctuations in readings, otherwise don’t need to do so. Please see the details of “frame rate” and changing the communication interface commands in the manual.

Standard output mode of LiDAR needs to be used instead of PIX mode in the latest firmwares. PIX mode was only required for the firmware versions older than Arducopter V3.6.2.

The default communication of TF Series LiDAR is TTL (UART). Both interfaces use the same cable, so please set the LiDAR to IIC communication first, see detailed commands in product manual.

We take three LiDARs as an example for (obstacle avoidance and altitude hold) in this tutorial and set the addresses to 0x10, 0x11 and 0x12 (16, 17, 18 in decimal respectively).

Figure-1: Pinout sequence of available ports on PixHawk 6C

Please pay attention that Pin 1 starts from the flight controllers "right side" like in the diagram shown above.

Note：

1. Default cable sequence of LiDAR and PixHawk (6C and 6X) is different, please pay attention to the wiring sequence. LiDAR connector is 4-pin JSTwith 1.25mm pitch and controller needs JST GH25mm 4-pin connector to interface LiDAR with I2C port. Or you can also make an intermediate cable for connecting TF series LiDAR with flight controller. Looking at the pinout of controller (6C), pin configurations are:

Figure-2: Pinout description of I2C port on PixHawk 6C

2. If LiDAR faces down, please take care of the distance between lens and ground, it should be larger than LiDAR blind zone (10cm or 20cm depending upon which LiDAR you are using).
3. If more LiDARs need to be connected (10 LiDARs can be connected), the method is same.
4. Power source should meet the product manual requirements; Voltage: 5V±0.5V, Current: larger than (peak-current of LiDAR*number of LiDARs connected). For current and voltage requirements, please refer to the data-sheet of respective LiDAR.
5. The communication interface of TFmini-S, TFmini-Plus and TF02-Pro can be switched by sending commands. However, in case of TF-Luna, it can be switched by connecting its 5^thpin to ground. Please see TF-Luna IIC communication pin details as below:

 Figure 3: Pin sequence TF-Luna

If we look at the pin configuration of TF-Luna, IIC can be set by grounding pin-5 in addition to the other four pins. For this purpose, a customized cable is needed because in IIC mode we need to connect both pin-4 and pin-5 to the ground.

The modified cable is shown below. I have connected green wire (pin-4) and blue wire (pin-5) to single pin which will go to the GND pin of the source. Leave pin-6 connected. Please ignore the color standard in this case as black wire represents SDA while yellow wires represent SCL, just follow the pin numbering according to the product-manual.

So, based on the above discussion, you will need to add an extra wire (for TF-Luna) in the diagram (Figure 3) in order to use TF-Luna in IIC mode. For more understanding, I have added a separate connection diagram for connecting multiple TF-Luna using IIC interface.

Figure 4: Schematic Diagram of Connecting TF-Luna to I2C Interface

2. PixHawk 6C (from HolyBro) Connection:

Please refer to the product manual for wiring sequence of LiDAR:

Figure 5: Schematic Diagram of Connecting three TF-LiDARs to I2C Interface of Flight Controller

3. Parameters settings (Obstacle Avoidance and Altitude Hold):

Connect the flight control board to Mission Planar. Select [CONFIG/TUNING] and then click on [Full Parameter List] in the left from the below bar. Find and modify the following parameters:

Attention: distance between UAV margin and LiDAR should be larger than LiDAR non-detection zone.

Common settings:

AVOID_ENABLE = 2 [if 3 = UseFence and UseProximitySensor doesn’t work in IIC then choose 2 = UseProximitySensor]

AVOID_MARGIN = 4 [can be set based on user requirements, can have different value depending upon which LiDAR you are using]

PRX1_TYPE = 4

AVOID_BEHAVE = 0 [This parameter will define what drone will do upon the encounter of obstacle (stop or slide to avoid the object) 0: Slide; 1: Stop]

Settings for First LiDAR:

RNGFND1_ADDR = 16 [Address of #1 sensor in decimal]

RNGFND1_MAX_CM = 400 [It could be changed according to real application requirement but should be smaller than effective measure range of LiDAR, depends on which LiDAR you are using, unit is cm] 

RNGFND1_MIN_CM = 30 [It could be changed according to real application requirement and should be larger than LiDAR non-detection zone, depends on which LiDAR you are using, unit is cm] 

RNGFND1_ORIENT = 0 [#1 sensor real orientation; 0~7, 24 = Up and 25 = Down (total ten are supported up till now), see details in MP]

RNGFND1_TYPE = 25 [ same for TFmini-S, TFmini-Plus, TF-Luna, TF02-Pro IIC]

Settings for Second LiDAR:

RNGFND2_ADDR = 17 [Address of #2 sensor in decimal]

RNGFND2_MAX_CM = 400

RNGFND2_MIN_CM = 30

RNGFND2_ORIENT = 4 [#2 sensor real orientation; 0~7, 24 = Up and 25 = Down (total ten are supported up till now), see details in MP]

RNGFND2_TYPE = 25 [same for TFmini-S, TFmini-Plus, TF-Luna, TF02-Pro IIC]

Settings for Third LiDAR (Altitude Hold):

RNGFND3_ADDR = 18 [Address of #3 sensor in decimal]

RNGFND3_MAX_CM = 400

RNGFND3_MIN_CM = 30

RNGFND3_ORIENT = 25 [#3 sensor real orientation; 0~7, 24 = Up and 25 = Down (total ten are supported up till now), see details in MP]

RNGFND3_TYPE = 25 [same for TFmini-S, TFmini-Plus, TF-Luna, TF02-Pro IIC]

RNGFND3_GNDCLEAR = 15 [Unit: cm, depending upon mounting height of the module and should be larger LiDAR than non-detection zone. This parameter is required for Altitude Hold.]

Upon setting of these parameters, click [Write Params] on the right of mission planner to finish. After writing the parameters you need to power off the controller and then turn it on to apply the setting changes.

If the error message “Bad LiDAR Health” or “PreArm: check the proximity sensor” appear, please check if the connection is correct, the power supply is normal and you have restarted the controller. Also, check it whether you have changed the mode from Standard mode to Pix mode if yes then the same error will encounter.

How to see the target distance from the LiDAR: press Ctrl+F button in keyboard, the following window will pop out:

Click button Proximity, the following window will appear:

The number in green color means the distance from LiDAR in obstacle avoidance mode（it doesn’t mean the real time distance from LiDAR and will not be influenced in Mission Planner. The mission planner version at the time of writing this tutorial was v1.3.79.

How to see the altitude value from LiDAR sensor: double click the area of the Mission Planner, look at the following picture:

Select option sonarrange, see following picture:

The altitude distance from the LiDAR will be displayed in Sonar Range (meters), see the following picture:

Data from Three LiDAR sensors:

You can see in the following image that RangeFinder1 (cm) does not display any data. The reason is, this LiDAR is used as Altitude Hold sensor, so its data is shown in Sonar Range (m). While the data of other two sensors is shown in Proximity window (right hand side).

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Hi everyone,

If you want to be a new drone operator, there some FAQs you may need to know . As a drone enthusiast, I would like to share some common questions here .

1）Can the remote controller install other apps?

The remote controller has completely open permissions, similar to smartphones ; there are no specific restriction for installation and uninstallation. It does not support QGC and the K3A temporarily.

2）Unable to connect FC ?

Check if matching the right remote controller. Check whether the baud rate matches the flight control.

3）The remote controller is constantly beeping?

When the remote controller fails to connect to the receiver, it will keep beep as warning.

4）The remote control broadcast volume is too low to hear clearly?  

Find the volume options in the settings and adjust the volume to a suitable level.

5）What other functions does the Type-C port have besides charging?

Besides charging, It can connect to the computer to view and transfer data files.

6）How many ways can the remote controller connect to the internet?

It can connect to the internet via a SIM card or through Wi-Fi .

Any other questions about agricultural drone，leave your comments in the discussion.

Hey guys,have you ever seen or used an agricultural drone for spraying crops？

Lately i`ve been using an spraying drone to pesticide the rice,and i`ve got to say this tool really helped a lot.

Before I spray all rice field need 3-5 people , spent a lot of time to spraying the pesticides.

But with this smart agricultural drone, I can complete the 2hect fields spraying easily ,just within 1hour . Just mapping the fields and set the flight routes on remote, set the required dosage and speed, and it will work automatically. It returns automatically when out of medicine or power, just refill and replace quickly. I love it, especially in summer, as I can control remotely from the shade.

From the results, drone spraying saves 45% pesticide water than manual spraying, and the effect is also good. The most important thing is that it doesn't require as many people, making farming more easy and also can fertilize ,very useful.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/pzi_L9BupGg