Object Following UAV using APM 2.5! Help!

Posted by Prashant Chawla on May 26, 2014 at 11:29pm

Hi!

I am a complete newbie in the world of UAVs. But I need to make a Object Following UAV using APM 2.5 as my academic project, so can't afford to spend time on mistakes. This heads me to this awesome group for advice :P

So, basically I am planning to transmit the video from quad rotor to my laptop and track the position of a particular object in the frame [Up till this part, I have done]. Next, I need to command my UAV according to the movement of target object to move in some particular direction using a C/C++ code.

I have a Quad C Frame from 3DR along with the telemetry radios. Now, I have some questions regarding this control part:

1> Can I update the way points in APM white it is still in flight?

2> Is it essential to buy zig bees or some other module to transmit the movement commands to the Quad or can I do this simply by updating the way points via the telemetry radios?

3> Instead of sending the way points, can I directly send commands to turn left/right , forward/backward etc. ?

I would really appreciate all your answers and help :)

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Tags: apm, multi, object-following, quad, quadcopter, quadrotor, radios, telemetry, uav, copter
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Replies

  • John Githens May 27, 2014 at 9:40am

    Hi Prashant,  this collection of DIYD blog posts about "follow me" functionality may be useful to you. This page for newbies has more information. Good luck on your project!

  • Developer
    Jani Hirvinen May 27, 2014 at 3:34am

    Yes you can command. You can use for example Follow Me command. You just need to send FM command with coordinates of your object. 

    You can look follow me features in github repository. 

    • Prashant Chawla > Jani Hirvinen May 27, 2014 at 4:09am

      Also, this can be acheived solely by the telemetry radios and we don't need separate radios for controlling. Right?

      And I want my Quad to remain at some distance from the target. How can I implement this mode to achieve this?

    • Developer
      Jani Hirvinen > Prashant Chawla May 27, 2014 at 4:19am

      Yes whole Follow Me works trough telemetry modems. Kevin has same features on his Andropilot tablet software. And if i remember correctly we also had some preliminary software for standalone Follow Me box. They all uses telemetry modem to send data to the drone.

    • Prashant Chawla > Jani Hirvinen May 27, 2014 at 3:47am

      Thanks! I got this part :)

      Now, can I directly command the quad to change its yaw because follow me can be cumbersome at times when I want the quad to remain at its position and just change its direction to face the object?

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