Discussions

In Flight Programming

Posted by Jason Robert on March 7, 2010 at 8:12am
I am building a medium sized UAV that I need to be able to reprogram in flight.  I will admit, I really dont know anything about how these auto pilots work and so I will be needing some assistance from all of you.  I will be running on board long range video stand alone and will be updating the mission mid stream if possible.  Can you folks help me with how to get set up for this or if it is even possible with Mega.  I dont know how to program but I am a quick study so I am confident that with the right hardware and some assistance I can figure out the programming soon enough. 

List of Needs
1.  Long range communication with aircraft (not video)
2.  Hardware for the autopilot (Mega) IMU based (Non thermopile based)
3.  A good OSD

I am sure each of these issues have several solutions and components.  I am trying to figure this stuff out with your help I will.  Thanks everyone for your patience with the new guy.

Jason in Hawaii

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Replies

  • Moderator
    Gary Mortimer April 4, 2010 at 2:14am
    @ morli LOS has been defined as 500m in most of the world. In South Africa we are lucky 1000m
  • Greg Fletcher April 3, 2010 at 9:11am
    I can upload gains using the Ardustation while the AP is in any mode. I do this by utilizing the buffer in the Xbee to hold received data until it has finished receiving the GPS data. The gains are entererd into the Ardustation by selecting the digit you wasn't to change and then scrolloing up or down. You then hit the send button to upload the new parameter. My next project will be to enter relative waypoints into Ardustation and convert to actual lat/lon and then upload. The Ardustation is mounted on top of my transmitter so I can keep my attention on the plane and not be distracted with a laptop. The code will be ported to 2.5 when I can find the time. I will start a blog post when the project done, soon I hope.

    http://code.google.com/p/ardupilot24x-1/
  • Andrew Dunlop April 3, 2010 at 3:59am
    Ah, thanks.
  • Andrew Dunlop April 3, 2010 at 3:32am
    Is there a protocol being developed to send waypoints and waypoint co-ordinates via telemetry uplink?

    Andrew.
  • Jason Robert April 3, 2010 at 2:04am
    Ok so I am trying to understand how this all works. So if I have a ground station can I make changes to the flight plan of my UAV without having to land and plug in? Can I use a Cell Modem to stay connected and then just send a new flight plan to the UAV in Flight? That is what I want to do, but I am so new at this I just don't know anything about it yet.

    Thanks for your help guys and gals
  • Curt Olson March 7, 2010 at 3:16pm
    Reprogram in flight: this sounds like a great feature idea for a "next generation" autopilot. :-)
  • Curt Olson March 7, 2010 at 3:14pm
    Reprogram in flight: that is an interesting requirement. Are you thinking about tuning different PID gains? Doing the code/compile/upload/test/debug cycle in flight to find and fix bugs? Do you want something like my phone or dvr where the device is in use out in the field, but you want to be able to periodically push out new firmware updates automatically? Do you want to upload a new program at random times to radically change the behavior of your autopilot? If you have to take your autopilot offline for a few minutes to upload and flash a new firmware image, that implies some sort of backup autopilot that can continue to maintain some sort of stable flight. All or any of these would be *really* interesting to think about and discuss, but perhaps you had some simpler or smaller scope in mind?
  • Developer
    Doug Weibel March 7, 2010 at 12:13pm
    What you want will likely will be available with Mega, except Mega (as a complete AP) does not exist yet. The IMU portion is still in the prototyping stage and we have not begun to pull all the bits of code together yet.

    As far as your individual questions the forum search feature is your friend :)
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