Developer

2-way Com with Ardu Pilot

I was able to finally get around to implementing 2-way communication with the Ardupilot HW without using a separate Arduino. It's a really simple and straight forward solution. When I'm in autopilot mode I read the GPS as normal, when I'm in manual mode I drive the Serial Mux on the V2 shield with Pin 7 set to LOW. This gives the external serial port access and cuts off the GPS. When I go into AP or RTL, I bring Pin 7 HIGH and I'm reading the GPS again. Works well.

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  • Jason,
    I was thinking along the same line as you,but decided it was to much with timing ect. Then I read the Xbee manual. Look at pg. 10 & 11 and check out my forum. You can send data by just sending it any time and The Xbee will hold it in it's little buffer until aurdpilot asks for it. You dont't need a multiplexer, but if you have one then use it. I am still doing some testing
    for reliability, but the concept works.

    Regards,
    Greg Fletcher
  • Developer
    That wouldn't work for me because I spend most of my time in FBW with interrupts disabled. I may do a call / response to the ground station when the control switch is set to manual. That way you can set your command in the GS in a queue and it will fire off when the plane asks for it. You could switch to Manual for a split second and still send off the command.
  • Sounds like an ingenious solution!
    Perhaps you could modify the code to have fly-by-wire mode always enabled in place of manual mode?
    Looking forward to seeing the code!
  • Good.
    I am still thinking of integrating a 6dof into the ardupilot still. The Wii motion plus and nunchuck with a CF filter is only 9k of code. Should be a way to use the heat sensor code space and replace it with the 6dof code.
    I have a 2.4G XBee system on mine here. My V2 shield and uBlox may be here tomorrow (11/7)
    Earl
  • Developer
    Yeah, It seems to work just fine on the bench. I'm just sending commands to rewind, pause, and skip waypoints for now. I will post the code after testing this weekend.
    Jason
  • Very interesting. You can upload new waypoint data on the fly so to speak ?
    Earl
  • Developer
    yeah, it can take one second which on a stable plane is fine.
  • 3D Robotics
    Interesting! So bascially, you switch it into manual mode to upload new data, and then switch it back to auto mode?
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