I'm working on a research project with a group to make a communications link that bridges one point to another through multiple quadcopters that automatically find the best position to loiter and land in to create the strongest link. The signal management and position algorithms would be handled by an onboard Raspberry Pi.
Does anyone know of any way to directly interface them, or has anyone done this already? I want to be able to set guided GPS points, get GPS position from the autopilot to the Raspberry PI, and still leave the autopilot unmodified. I'd prefer not to have to make a custom MAVLINK program to run on the Raspberry Pi, but if I have to, can I read the serial and only pull the values I need, and still be able to send guided points? Thank you for your help in advance!
Replies
Hi,
If you don't want to modify ArduCopter you just have to interpret MAVLink on the RPi. Unless you only need the position - then you can branch the output wire from GPS in two - one to Ardupilot and one to RPi. You can't command the copter then.
But believe me, it is to the better that there is only MAVLink on the wires. It is a neat and tidy protocol and the is a complete and working code generator that makes you efficient C code to read and write MAVLink.
See this stupid but simple code that I wrote some time ago. It compiles on Linux and can read and write (some) MAVLink. It will get you the idea how easy it is. Of course you may improve with threads etc.
To get the code generator, google for MAVLink, there it is. It is implemented in Python.
Regards
Soren