Hi @ all,
First: I got my ardustation running, and it works as it should.
BUT: I want tu use it with a Standard (180 degree) servo. I don't need to fly around me. I just want to fly in the front of my starting point.
Is there a easy posibillity to change the code or add an parameter for configuration?
I'm sure i can adapt it myself, but it'll be a quick and dirty (very dirty) code. Maybe there is a need for this cause.
Kind Regards,
Michael
Replies
Hi Michael,
It is definitely possible, but a little tricky. The current code computes a range bearing to the destination A/C and the bearing is always in 0 to 359 degrees. The default configuration is a standard 180 degree servo geared to an antenna in a 2:1 ratio so the antenna would rotate a full 360 degrees for the commanded servo position of 0 to 180 degrees. Are you assuming that there will be no gearing in your 180 degree servo to antenna connection? If this is the case, then the command servo position would have to bet set to the computed bearing, but there is the issue of what direction the 90 degree position (in the middle of the 0 to 180 degree range) of the servo is pointed to. You will always get back from the range bearing routine a bearing of 0 to 359, so you have to decide where the middle of the servo range would be set with respect to a received bearing. The other question is as follows:
if you point to antenna so that (say as an example) your full range of rotation would be equivalent to 45 degrees to 225 degrees with the center of rotation pointed to 135 degrees, what would you want to happen when the actual postion calculated is outside of the range - for example, the A/C is actually 0 degrees (North) with a range of 1 meter. This happens in reality because the GPS drifts with an error corresponding to the accuracy of the GPS position. With bad satellite constellations, and with the A/C near the antenna (on the ground), you can get all of the possible bearing values. Should the antenna stop at 45 or 225 depending on which side? Also you would have to some enter what the actual center point of the antenna would be (in my example 135 degrees).
All this is possible - but the UI would have to be modified to set the actual position of the antenna and what to do at the endpoints. The code can be changed, but the main problem is that the code is currently near the capacity of actual RAM and adding more parameters or more UI might cause the software to be unstable and to require removing other features.
It would be much easier to just accept its default configuration use a geared antenna. I'm currently not planning any new releases unless major problems are found and I don't have any antenna hardware in a non geared configuration to test against. You're definitely welcome to modify the code and I'm glad to give you further assistance if you like.
Heino