Hey,
I'm planning to purchase the ArduCopter or AeroQuad. The limitation is that I need to be able to control the vehicles from my computer since I'm building an autonomous robot. I'm aware that neither of these quads are supported by code that can accomplish this but I know someone who might be able to set me up with an 8 channel RF module that can accomplish the same.
My question is: The data from the accelerometers,gyrometers, etc.... comes through what? The Xbee??
Can I keep the Xbee for reading stuff like gyro readings, etc. and put my 8 channel RF module to control the quad itself?
Replies
In ArduCopterNG (the current recommended code), you can modify the code slightly to make the telemetry info come through the xBee attached to the telemetry port (i.e. a serial port) which is on the front of the APM.
You will need to make a small change to the arduCopterNG.pde though. you should modify around line 100 so that the line in bold below is uncommented (like it is below). Also you need to change the baud most likely. I don't think xBee works well above 57600. So you should uncomment that line too (and comment out the 115200 line).
#define SerXbee
// Telemetry port speed, default is 115200
//#define SerBau 19200
//#define SerBau 38400
#define SerBau 57600
//#define SerBau 115200
Now the problem comes with the protocol. In arduCopterNg it sends the telemetry data as comma separated strings. the code that sends it can be found in GCS.pde. Have a look for the SendSerialTelemetry function. So if your "groundstation" i.e. your computer sends a "Q" the quad will send back the accelerometer and gyro data. If you use this you will be hijacking the method that the configurator uses to talk to the Quad.
Note that the next version of the code, ACM, is quite different and will be using MAVLINK which is a more standard method of talking with groundstations. HappyKillmore's made a pretty awesome groundstation as well that can be used.
Ah, and to answer your questoin - i think yes, you shoudl be able to use the xbee to send the gyro and accel data back to your groundstation and use that RF transmitter attached to your computer to send roll, pitch, throttle, yaw comands to the Quad (of course you will need an RF receiver on the quad as well).