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Andropilot - discussion for Android ground controller users/developers

Posted by Kevin Hester on January 21, 2013 at 9:06am

Hi ya'll,

The thread on my blog post is getting a little unmanageable.  How about we discuss test results here instead...  

I'll also post release notes as new builds are out.  The device must support 'USB host mode' (most devices running android 3.1 or later are fine).  You'll need a 'OTG' adapter such as this

Please post feedback here or on the github issues site - the google play comments are not really useful yet.

3689504133?profile=original

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Hi ya'll.  Please move further discussion of this app to a newly created group:

http://www.diydrones.com/groups/705844:Group:1132500?xg_source=msg_appr_group

Feel free to make new approprately titled discussion threads.  

Future app releases will be announced only there.

 

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Replies

  • stubugs February 6, 2013 at 1:39am
    At a fear of apearing dumb
    Could someone please explain what udp is
    And how to use it
    Many thanks
    stu
  • Developer
    Andrew Tridgell February 5, 2013 at 10:33pm

    Hi Kevin,

    I've been testing the 0.1.31 release, using the SITL sim. See the comments in Tools/autotest/sim_arduplane.sh for how to do this.

    Thanks very much for the new features! It basically works. A few minor points:

    • the number of syllables in speech notifications needs to be kept short. For example "height" is better than "altitude"
    • same goes for "fly by wire a" which really sounds strange when read out! I use "FBWA" in mavproxy
    • I'd suggest adding a "height announce rounding" config option, defaulting to 10m. Then round all announced altitudes to 10m, and only announce if the difference between the last announce the now is more than 10m (note this needs to be done carefully, ie. if last announce was "height 80" and it was at height 76 at the time, then don't do a new announcement at 74, instead announce if it goes to 86 or 66. Otherwise the announcements get very annoying if you are close to a boundary!
    • make heights either be the barometric height (GLOBAL_POSITION_INT.relative_alt*0.001) or use SRTM to give true above ground level height
    • can we get an option to disable the HUD? I don't usually want a HUD in the field - it looks cool, but there isn't actually much you can do with it! More useful would be to be able to graph arbitrary mavlink fields (or combinations of fields, in mavproxy you can graph python expressions)
    • we may need priorities in the speech. For example, I switched mode to LOITER while in AUTO and didn't hear a mode announce. I suspect it was overridden by a "altitude 711" announcement. I don't know if the android speech output has priorities? (I used a few different priority levels in mavproxy to avoid this)
    • there should probably be a "mute" button for when the speech starts getting on pilots nerves (you can use the volume rocker on the tablet, but its slow)
    • changing orientation gives a superfluous "speech enabled" announcement

    But basically its looking good, thanks!

    Cheers, Tridge

  • Developer
    Kevin Hester February 5, 2013 at 8:41pm

    Update: 2/5/13 New beta released (I think this will be a pretty good build) - You can download a binary from github.  Or wait a few hours and it will be up on the play store.  

    3692612619?profile=original

    # 0.1.31

    * Add speech output
    * Add HUD display (in portrait mode)
    * Fix nasty USB performance problem - we can get a very high packet rate now
    * Fix a problem where I was inadvertently never dequeing something from a worker thread (really nasty)
    * Set background colors on overview screen, so hacked up android builds will work better
    * Bump up stream rate on RC and stuff I need for the HUD

    For next release:
    * Do something to allow waypoint list selection with action bar ( http://stackoverflow.com/questions/3111354/android-listview-stay-se... )
    * Show heartbeat lost on the overview screen
    * FIXME: fix udp receiver
    * FIXME: add waypoint change type (via menu dropdown)
    * FIXME: make a website
    * Change waypoint icons as appropriate...
    * FIXME: Use a state machine to ensure we don't get confused if someone moves a waypoint while we are busy uploading new waypoints
    * Clean up package namespace
    * Show docs on parameter names (if possible)
    * Handle the 'unusual' waypoint representations - look at mavproxy code for clues

    geeksville/arduleader
    An android ground controller (and other things) for Mavlink/Arduplane - geeksville/arduleader
  • Developer
    Kevin Hester February 5, 2013 at 7:10am

    Thanks for the reports on problems with 0.1.30.  On the way to work I think I thought of the cause (also the 'queuing' behavior seen by tridge).  I'll fix it tonight, but until I have a new release out I recommend folks that need 'reliability' stay with 0.1.27.

  • Willie Botha February 4, 2013 at 10:25pm

    This is the best app that I have on my Phone & Tablet ... BIG thank you!!!

  • Ottomite February 4, 2013 at 10:00pm

    I just bought an android tablet just to experiment with this. Can't wait till it gets here. Keep up  the good work ! 

  • Naji Karim February 4, 2013 at 9:57pm

    Let me start by thanking you for a great job, I am hooked and look forward to every update...

    I have a Sony S tablet and the app(latest ver) is running fine. The vehicle overview is not getting populated and the airplane icon is mostly yellow. I am not sure about the update rate of information from the APM (ver1) to the tablet. I have mounted the APM board ontop of an RC Car for test purposes and the GPS position was not getting updated smoothly. The Paramaters and RC Channel screen are getting populated and update as I move the stick correctly.

    I also have the app installed on a Samsung Note phone (ver1)  and I am getting a similar behavior as noted above.

  • Peter Meister February 4, 2013 at 6:37pm

    Kevin,

    I am testing 1.30 and I no longer am receiving MavLink Data. It seems after 1.27 something changed now in the Vehicle View I get no info, in the Status Message I get "looking for vehicle" if I back install 1.27 the data comes back, if I go past 1.28 no joy. Did something change in 1.29 and 1.30 in regards to how you pull data down from the APM through the 3DR - polling rate, anyways....I am not able to resolve it, I will post logs but since I am not receiving any data I am not sure that will help.

    Also does Vehicle Overview require that APM have GPS 3D Fix before any data comes in ? and does the radio have to be on? 

    Let me know your thoughts.

    This is on Acer Iconia TAB500 with Android ICS 4.03

  • Developer
    Andrew Tridgell February 4, 2013 at 5:23pm

    Very impressive app Kevin!

    I've been testing it against a SITL version of ArduPlane, usnig mavproxy to forward packets over a 3DR radio so I can test the full capabilities at home. A couple of things stand out as possible improvements:

    • speech output for key events. I find the main thing I use my ground station for while flying is the speech output, as I like to keep my eyes on the aircraft. The key things are "mode XXX", "height XXX" (every 10 meters is good), "battery XX%" (every 10% is good), and optionally airspeed. Is there a nice android text to speech lib that could be used for this? Perhaps with a set of dialogs to enable/disable?
    • height above ground, not above sea-level. The best message to use for relative height is GLOBAL_POSITION_INT.relative_alt*0.001 (to get it in meters). It would be even better to use a cached version of SRTM data to get the true AGL height, by querying SRTM for the terrain height. That is how mavproxy displays correct AGL altitude (see https://github.com/tridge/MAVProxy/blob/master/modules/mavproxy_map...)
    • a way to pre-cache the map tiles for an area, so it will work with no network access at the field. I ended up doing my own slipmap implementation for mavproxy to get this (see https://github.com/tridge/MAVProxy/blob/master/modules/mavproxy_map...)
    • a button to enable/disable following the planes location on the map
    • a menu to load/save the waypoints to local files.
    • a menu to load/save/display the geofence

    There also seems to be a bug that causes the aircraft position to lag the true position by quite a long way. Perhaps there is a buffering problem on the mavlink connection to the radio? Are you assuming a stream rate, or just reading messages as fast as they come in?

    Overall this is a great app though - I had planned on porting MAVProxy to android, but I think it may be better for me to learn a bit of Java coding and submit some patches for your app.

    Thanks!

  • Rana February 4, 2013 at 1:45pm

    Kevin, I tried to install the latest app ver 1.30 but but failed in installation due to mine is ZTE V9C Tab with android 2.34 and due to some limitation, I am unable to migrate to android 3.1 or higher. Is it possible, if you could do something ? Thanks in advance, Best Regards Rana

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