Mission Planner

Posted by T.Maclaurin on August 20, 2012 at 2:31am

Hi

Can anyone tell me how the mission planner works.

Does it need to be running and connected to the Internet whilst in flight or do you program the way points in at home or on the ground before flight.

Also is it possible to edit and add way points in flight.

Thankyou

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Replies

  • Gustav Kuhn August 20, 2012 at 10:32am

    Ok, at some point you need to connect to the internet.

    MP uses Google Earth to help you visualize the mission, set up waypoint, altitudes, etc.

    If you are sure the mission is set up and loaded correctly, you don't need MP to be running during the flight.

    You can "cache" maps of the area of interest beforehand, I haven't done it yet, all my flying is done with a 3G internet connection.

    If you want live data on a laptop display during the flight, you obviously need some form of data link.

    It used to be xBee links, these days 3DR links.

    Any commercial(expensive) link that can handle the data throughput will do though.

    I lost contact with my plane once, and only because I had live data, could I go to the last position recorded, and search from there. And found it, virtually undamaged.

    Stupid me, never connected the airspeed pitot.

  • Stephen Dade August 20, 2012 at 3:56am

    The mission planner connects to your APM via the USB cable or wireless telemetry. You can alter the waypoints and parameters at anytime before or during flight.


    During flight, it will log the APM's state. This is useful for post-flight analysis, especially if you crashed and want to figure out why.

    An Internet connection is optional - you won't get the Google maps images in the moving map though. I believe there's an option to cache these maps beforehand though.

    There's a page for it on the wiki:

    http://code.google.com/p/ardupilot-mega/wiki/Mission

     

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