Hello,
I am working on a quadrotor project under a NASA grant and I am having some difficulty. We are trying to create an application for Android smartphones to be able to send and receive missions for autonomous flight. Currently, we get the copter to "connect" but data is not sent or recieved between the two.
The setup is as follows:
3S Turnigy Graphene LiPo 5000mAh battery
3DR Power Module
MiniAPM v3.1 (unsure of specific model and where purchased from, will update later)
AP GPS with compass (again, will update with purchase history)
3DR Telemetry module (the one with the connector on it for Mini APM, will update specifics)
QBrain 4 in 1 ESC
The problem is that when trying to connect over telemetry, using the Android application Tower and Mission Planner, the telemetry modules do not fully connect. The parameters aren't synced. No data is sent or received.
Tried different telemetry modules, no change. Baud rate is 57600 and telemetry is 915mHz. Was synced together using SikRadio in mission planner, but still won't connect.
Any help is appreciated, thanks in advance.
Replies
If you want to see the communication happening on the parameter requests between the ground station and the vehicle you can use QGroundControl to do that. An RC build from here: https://donlakeflyer.gitbooks.io/qgroundcontrol-user-guide/content/... or a daily build should work fine. Or you can sign up for the Android beta if you want to do it on Android (normal stable Android builds available in Play Store in about a week). Then turn on logging for ParameterLoaderLog as described here: https://donlakeflyer.gitbooks.io/qgroundcontrol-user-guide/content/... and connect to your vehicle. The Console will output what is going on with the parameter loading protocol.
Stuck at Getting Parameters. Can see accelerometer movements but it doesn't fully connect.
Craig said:
Have you tried to actually use a PC and Windows and Mission Planner to eliminate the possibility that it is Tower and your Phone/Tablet having the issue?
Joseph DiFeo said:
We are using Tower as a test application. We are developing our own application to fulfill our needs but with more likely errors there, we are using Tower to try and connect, send and receive, etc. From there, we can determine if the problem is hardware or software.
Craig said:
if you are receiving telemetry then your TX/RX leads are correct. You might look at the wire going from the TX on the radio to the RX on the APM to see that it is not loose or damaged.
Also I am not sure you want to use Tower as it is really for use on Hawks running newer APM flight stacks. 3.2.1 is the newest firmware that can run on an old APM and 3.4 is about to be released for hawks.
This worked! Although the quad still cannot send/receive parameters. But the phone is showing the quad tilting! That's TX and RX correct? So reversing the pins is not necessary? Still wont send or receive missions or parameters and will not arm over telemetry.
Craig said:
The mini is kind of a pain. But connect to MP via usb, go to optional hardware, OSD and click on the green button. Wait a few and then unplug the USB. Power up with the Lipo and see if you are getting packets. If not then reverse the RX/TX pins and check again.