Discussions

PX4/Pixhawk Flight Core Controlling FireFLY6 VTOL

Posted by Greg Covey on September 5, 2015 at 9:00am

Hi,

I recently discovered a post on RCG here back in May 2015 from a new member about using a single Pixhawk for VTOL control on the BirdsEyeView FireFLY6. It lead to the PX4 page below describing some development firmware for the Pixhawk. Does anyone know if there have been updates to this development or how to obtain the firmware for testing?

VTOL Firmware for Pixhawk

PX4 Page to BirdsEyeView FireFly

Thanks.

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Replies

  • MATTHEW R CUNNINGHAM December 30, 2016 at 2:13pm



    Greg Covey said:

    I find it hard to believe that you cannot accomplish your goals with 254 or less waypoints per flight. You will be hard-pressed to beat the performance and simplicity of the AvA firmware and FireFLY6 Planner. The new v1.2 firmware and planner has just been released with even more capability.

    Basically because of the terrain we are flying we have to use the internal waypoint grid to create what I would say is a DEM of our plot we are going to map. We do not have the luxury of have fairly flat terrain where we are, and firefly planner has taken out terrain awareness at least to my knowledge. Yes AvA is nice and they are the only somewhat reasonably priced VTOL available currently, that has any sort of capacity. Has anyone else consistently gotten PreArm: Compasses Inconsistent on your Firefly6, this may also be an issue with our EMLID reach throwing some sort of interference, but the thing flew very well before we had a crash. I have been looking for the log files from that crash but am unable to find them so i will post some from the rebuild and the same problem we had when it crashed. The firefly took off well very stable in hover mode got up to height and hit the transition switch, transitioned well to forward flight (all in manual) flew around very well in forward flight! Came close to home and hit the transition switch, it started its transition but began to dip its wings back and forth side to side until it impacted the ground. Only thing that was broke was ESC got wet fried the BEC, still unsure if these compasses inconsistent maybe from the crash and the pixhawk board is damaged, we have added new gps unit and compasses to no avail. attached are some bin files from flight today, we still get the uncontrollable wing dipping back and forth.

    2016-12-30 12-43-20.bin

    2016-12-30 12-33-08.bin

    2016-12-30 14-07-46.bin

  • Greg Covey December 30, 2016 at 8:44am

    I find it hard to believe that you cannot accomplish your goals with 254 or less waypoints per flight. You will be hard-pressed to beat the performance and simplicity of the AvA firmware and FireFLY6 Planner. The new v1.2 firmware and planner has just been released with even more capability.

  • Paul Meier December 30, 2016 at 12:37am

    Seems the only people to do so were the px4 devs, documentation very scarce

  • MATTHEW R CUNNINGHAM December 29, 2016 at 12:12pm

    We have a Firefly6 and were using it for mapping missions but have decided to get rid of AVA and firefly planner due to it not being fully functioning for our uses. The main reason we have gotten rid of it is due to the fact that it will not allow us to have more than 254 way points. I am running into many problems trying to get this thing up and running using the PX4 flight stack in Q ground Control. Can anyone point me in a direction that has some good info about getting the firefly up and running the PX4 flight stack. It seems that there is a bunch of info here and there but not a good single source, and that may just be the case. I was just wondering if anyone has gotten the firefly6 up and running on not on AVA software, and if so would they be willing to share their parameter files?

  • Nada December 22, 2016 at 5:27am



    Nada said:

    Hi Greg

    Thank you for your reply. I will let you know what will happen to me. Thanks again 

    Greg Covey said:

    Hi Nada,

    If you use the APM stack with APM: Plane v3.6.0 release firmware then you can utilize the QuadPlane features that you desire. Here are a few links to get you started. You will see my QuadPlane projects for Bix3 and Ranger EX in the forum link below. At this time, folks are having QuadPlane difficulties using APM Plane v3.7.0 so please start with v3.6.0.

    APM Wiki - QuadPlane Support

    ArduPilot Discussion Forum - APM Plane v3.6.0

  • Nada December 22, 2016 at 5:25am



    Greg Covey said:

    Hi Nada,

    If you use the APM stack with APM: Plane v3.6.0 release firmware then you can utilize the QuadPlane features that you desire. Here are a few links to get you started. You will see my QuadPlane projects for Bix3 and Ranger EX in the forum link below. At this time, folks are having QuadPlane difficulties using APM Plane v3.7.0 so please start with v3.6.0.

    APM Wiki - QuadPlane Support

    ArduPilot Discussion Forum - APM Plane v3.6.0

  • Greg Covey December 22, 2016 at 4:49am

    Hi Nada,

    If you use the APM stack with APM: Plane v3.6.0 release firmware then you can utilize the QuadPlane features that you desire. Here are a few links to get you started. You will see my QuadPlane projects for Bix3 and Ranger EX in the forum link below. At this time, folks are having QuadPlane difficulties using APM Plane v3.7.0 so please start with v3.6.0.

    APM Wiki - QuadPlane Support

    ArduPilot Discussion Forum - APM Plane v3.6.0

    QuadPlane Support — Plane documentation
  • Nada December 22, 2016 at 12:16am

    Dear Greg 

    I'm still new in PX4. I like what you did in your project. In my project, I'm using Px4 controller and I want to transfer between quad copter mode to fixed wing mode. Can you help me in that, please?

    Also, I want to ask you if how can I program the controller with C++ or I have only to use the mission planner? 

    Should I use the APM?

    Your quick response will be apprecieted for me.

    Thank you

    Nada

  • Nada December 21, 2016 at 8:44am

    Dear Greg 

    I'm still new in PX4. I like what you did in your project. In my project, I'm using Px4 controller and I want to transfer between quad copter mode to fixed wing mode. Can you help me in that, please?

    Also, I want to ask you if how can I program the controller with C++ or I have only to use the mission planner? 

    Should I use the APM?

    Your quick response will be apprecieted for me.

    Thank you

    Nada

  • Greg Covey December 2, 2016 at 5:58am

    The problem with using two flight controllers is that it requires having the FireFLY6 Transition Bridge. I would first try the PX4 stack solution which doesn't require a key.

    babak said:

    Greg what is your idea about using two flight and RC at this project, how can I do it???

This reply was deleted.

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