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Antenna Tracking using Mission Planner and Maestro

Posted by FPVGenie on November 16, 2013 at 8:08am

Guys,

I wanted to dabble into setting up an antenna tracker. Got myself the ServoCity Tube servos, for Pan and Tilt. Assembled it all with a Polulu Maestro and got the interface working. Followed the article here :

http://vps.oborne.me/gcs/Tracker.html

Few things I couldnt figure out and would be glad if someone can point me in the correct direction: 

-- Any way I can set a minimum radiius for the Antenna Tracking to start working ? Dont want the tracker to go round and round when I am flying close by or doing passes around me.

-- For the Tilt servo, I have a 180 degree servo travel. The article above says that the neutral should be set facing 45degrees .. In that case though I cannot utilize the full 180 degree travel . Can only get 90 at the most. So my question here is, can the tilt center be set to 0 degrees ie facing straight up and 90 tilt on either side ? 

I think thats most of it for now . Would appreciate some help.

Thanks ! 

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Tags: antenna, maestro, mission, planner, tracker
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Replies

              • Patrick Luciano > Patrick Luciano February 11, 2014 at 3:49pm

                My antenna tracker (to the right), houses the maestro and my 5.8ghz wireless bridge, I run ethernet to my groundstation and USB from maestro to my usb hub and it's all setup and ready to go.  Only have to set tracker location under mission planner and I'm good to go.

    • David Pawlak > Michael Oborne February 11, 2014 at 3:47am

      Do I have to have my quad connected before I can see any activity on the Pololu Maestro?

      I followed the instructions listed in the the web page. Everything works fine with the Maestro control program, all configuration saved... (Power off and power back on, and I have the values that I pre-configured)

      But I plug into Mission Planner, (without my quad connected) and no joy. It comes to initial settings, but doesn't move from there. If I adjust offset for instance. I set home position manually.

      What am I missing?

      • Patrick Luciano > David Pawlak February 11, 2014 at 3:44pm

        You will need to make sure all settings in mission planner under "Antenna Tracker" are correct.  Also verify that you have selected the correct port and make sure baud rate is 9600.

  • Brent Alderton January 12, 2014 at 2:01am

    I am also trying to get it to work. Tilt seems to work fine but pan doesnt move much and seems like it needs an amplification factor.

    Any ideas?

  • Patrick Luciano December 18, 2013 at 4:02pm

    Good to see another giving this a shot; I just picked up one of the Servo City bottom mount pans set up for 360 degrees of travel, and one of the tube assemblies for the tilt. Initially had tilt setup for 90 degrees of rotation, but haven’t gotten my head wrapped around the recommended 45 degree neutral set point. Pan seems to work almost perfect, but tilt is extremely sketchy.. When I move my home position around on mission planner screen (ground testing only) it doesn’t seem to adjust tilt correctly. If I set my home position at a point 300-400' above the quad's altitude it seems to tilt the opposite direction, or just act erratically; tried reversing tilt servo in MP but no change.... Need to get this figured out..  Also running the Maestro by Pololu.

    I too plan to run the 180 degree tilt, so would love to know if I can set neutral as vertical position and get 90 degrees each direction. This would make the most sense for my setup if possible.  Did you by chance get this figured out?

     

    I plan to do a complete “how to” post when I get a little free time; seems to be a slight lack of information re the antenna tracking feature, might help someone just getting going with all this (I too reviewed the current wiki on this).

     

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