I just started my drone adventure this Christmas with a Bixler 1.1, and it is performing GREAT. I have been flying missions, loitering, RTL, and even self-landing. I am planning a mission to my brother's house about 2.5Km away, and would like to land there, but there is an elevation difference. (Don't worry, I will be following it the whole way :)
Q: How do you program the APM to account for a landing that is above or below the takeoff altitude?
Replies
If you put in a waypoint in the Mission Planner at the point you want to touchdown and then change that to a Land command then the altitude according to the map you're using (eg Google maps) is recorded as the Touchdown altitude.
The aircraft will fly to, if I recall correctly, 2m above that altitude and then flare heading for the touchdown point, cutting the throttle and just holding wings level and maintaining course. It doesn't know exactly how high it is but will flare with the motor off until it touches down.
There's no need to set any offset or anything like that. It's a fairly simple and non-intelligent landing procedure.
Just do a DO_ACTION pre-flight calibration before you takeoff to reset the AGL and airspeed.
When you call for a landing MP asks for an altitude. Never tried what you are doing but this should work.