Discussions

??Multiple pixhawks communicating to single Ground Control Station??

Posted by YTIEB on February 11, 2017 at 5:29pm

I am looking to have 3+ (ideally quite a few more) pixhawks send their live telemetry data to ideally one laptop that records this data as it comes in. Is this possible?

At the moment I am thinking either mission planner or Qgroundcontrol and using one of the swarm type modes. But Can these 'planners' deal with receiving lots of incoming communication?

Ideally I would like to use a method of long range communication like LoRa to send the data but I am unsure of how to get many of these at 433Mhz transceivers to talk to the GCS at the same time.

Any suggestions on hardware/software or threads that may help me out?

Thanks in advance!!

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Replies

Prashanth Rajagopalan December 19, 2017 at 1:01am

Do I have to use similar drones or can I use drones of different sizes/frame types?
Prashanth Rajagopalan December 19, 2017 at 12:54am

Thanks. But I already saw this. Does it work properly with Mission Planner? Is Q Ground Control a better option?
3D Robotics

Chris Anderson December 18, 2017 at 9:15pm

Oh. Just read the manual.

Swarming — Mission Planner documentation
Prashanth Rajagopalan December 18, 2017 at 8:20pm

@Chris Anderson

Yes. I got that. How do I send commands to the drones so that they move together, get a formation, etc?
3D Robotics

Chris Anderson December 18, 2017 at 7:32am

Yes, see my pictures in this thread that show how to use a USB hub to control multiple drones with 3DR radios.
Prashanth Rajagopalan December 18, 2017 at 2:49am

I am also looking to control multiple drones at the same time. Can I achieve this with my existing 3DR telemetry radios or do I need the XBee modem for sure? Also, can you please share a document which explains how to achieve multiple drone control with Q Ground Control (I am more familiar with Mission Planner)?
Sam Worthington February 17, 2017 at 2:37am

Please let us know how you get on with this. I've been wanting to do some swarming experiments with our Wing GCS, but have not found the time yet.

My earlier investigations led me in the direction of QGround Control or UgCS as indicated above, or possibly APM Planner.

Sam
Alexey Dobrovolskiy February 16, 2017 at 1:46am

You can also use UgCS to control multiple drones and store telemetry logs. Also UgCS can work with XBee modems, please see this document - https://www.ugcs.com/files/PDFs/Manuals/v2.9/manual-xbee.pdf.

https://www.ugcs.com/files/PDFs/Manuals/v2.9/manual-xbee.pdf
YTIEB February 11, 2017 at 6:09pm

Brilliant thank you so much :)
3D Robotics

Chris Anderson February 11, 2017 at 6:08pm

I'm afraid I don't know anything about Xbees. As for recording all the datalogs, yes as I recall QGroundControl logs all the incoming MAVLink from all the MAVs, regardless of which one is currently being controlled