Hi ya'll. So we've been working away on the original proposal for a new much more flexible version of droneshare.  

Thanks to the help of many people (see below) this new beta is ready.  Features of this new version of droneshare and associated APIs include...

Features for pilots

• Live uploading of flights via Droidplanner and Andropilot (use the beta version of these applications - follow the links to find the correct google group and special download link).  If you enable live upload in your application settings and have an internet connection your flight can be tracked live on the global map (subject to your sharing preferences in droneshare).
• Delayed uploading of flights via Droidplanner, Andropilot (and Bill says it should soon be in APM Planner).  This is useful to let your phone/tablet upload flights the next time it has wifi access.
• Drag and drop tlog uploads via the web interface.
• You can (finally) set a password for your account.
• Selectable sharing preferences (private, public, etc...)
• Share buttons for G+ and Facebook if you wish to share a particular flight with friends.
• Google earth KMZ viewing
• Parameter file downloading
• TLOG downloading
• Thousands of flights from the 'old' droneshare implementation have been migrated to the new server.  If anyone is still running old versions of Andropilot those flights will be automatically migrated to the new server once a day.

Features for developers

• The new droneshare can be developed in 100% Javascript and can be hosted on any web server (all server side content is static).  The code is written to depend on as few external libraries as possible and to be easy to extend.  We welcome pull-requests and are happy to answer questions.  If want fork the Apache licensed code into some new application (new log viewers, remote control, etc...) that's fine also.
• A streaming API is supported for connecting to vehicles or ground control stations.  You only really need this API if you want to add live upload (and optional web based control) to your GCS.  This protocol is bidirectional, so the server (if granted permissions by the user) can send control directives to the vehicle.  If you are interested in using this feature, please contact us on our discussion group.
• A REST API is available for web applications (in fact, Droneshare uses only this API).  For this API it is probably best to read the getting started page.  If you've ever wanted to write a web application that can talk to your drone (or thousands of others), now's your chance. If you have questions, please contact our discussion group.
• A device side API can be used for vehicle control/monitoring from desktop or on vehicle applications.  It is probably best to start by working through our tutorial.

Getting started

• (Recommended) Download the beta of Droidplanner or Andropilot.  Go to settings in the application and pick a username and password.  You can later use this username to log into the website to set an (optional) email address and custom gravatar.  You can also adjust sharing preferences for any uploaded flights.
• If you'd rather just use the website you can create an account on the droneshare web page.    Then you can go to the "My Profile" in the upper right and create a vehicle and drag-and-drop tlog files.

Thanks

I'd like to extend the following special thanks - without their efforts this application would be not nearly as nice.

• Ramon Roche for lots of help making Droneshare work well
• Jason Short for lots of help making Droneshare look good (and it will get even better in the future)
• Arthur Benemann for his help adding support to Droidplanner
• The entire drones-discuss dev group for lots of good feedback/ideas
• 3D Robotics for supporting the development of this application

The future

Since this is the first release of this web application and associated client side code, the near future (the next two weeks?) we will be feverishly fixing any bugs you report.  Please be patient with us as we work through the github issues pile.  If is possible that during this initial period the server may be down occasionally.

If you find a problem, please create a new issue and we promise to look into it.  If you have ideas for this application, either create a new issue or contact us at our mailing list.  (Note: Parameter display and the data plot views are temporarily disabled, they will be re-enabled this week)

We have a bunch of really cool ideas for the future that we are working on just as quickly as we can, we'd love help.  Or if you'd rather just make your own application that uses these APIs or services, that is great also.  The main www.droneshare.com server will strive for stability, if you are a little more brave and want the latest features first you can instead use beta.droneshare.com.

Bonus screenshot

Or is it just marketing?  I have a hard time seeing how this works financially...

As countries around the world gradually lift regulations on the use of commercial drones, a new startup called Flirtey hopes to turn Australia into a worldwide industry leader for the use of UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) in e-commerce deliveries. Flirtey plans to launch commercial drone delivery of textbooks purchased from Zookal for domestic customers in 2014 before expanding to the U.S. in 2015. The startup says this marks the first use of fully automated commercial zones for package delivery in the world.

Link

Hi ya'll,

Thanks to Luciano Zanchi, Gary Mortimer and Remigijus this new release is now out to production.  

The main features compared to the last GA release:

• Substantially simplified user interface (the sidebar now gets hidden by default in landscape mode - if you want it back, just choose 'Show Sidebar' in the menu).  Most interesting data floats over the map view.
• Bluetooth and on-screen joystick improvements for safety and response rate
• More time spent with the profiler, should be even faster than old versions
• Special UIs for phones with small screens

If you would like to use the bluetooth or on screen joysticks, please be extra careful because that code has been used by less than 2% of the users.  If you need to grab control away with the RC xmitter, just toggle the mode switch or press the cancel button on the tablet/joystick.

Here's Luciano's review of this feature:

Flown 3 lipos controlling copter with Andropilot only using new icons and joysticks. RC radio left only for emergency. Everything OK in STAB, LOITER, GUIDED, LAND, etc.

IMHO this version can be promoted to GA...perhaps with some notice for beeing careful with [Arm] icon 

Ciao

The beta release chain will now be focused on testing/developing scripting for GCS and vehicle operations.  If you are interested in being on the bleeding edge.  Join this G+ group and opt-in.

Of course any feedback/code-fixes/questions are welcome here or here or here ;-). 

Thanks so much - this particular release was a lot of fun to futz with...

Bonus picture of a (very crowded but usable) layout on a small phone:

New major beta release for Andropilot (if reports from brave users are good, it will go out to the 'safe' general release in about a week).  I'm testing out some changes to simplify the UI - this release includes some of them.  Here's a 'picture' of the new code:

Please please please, provide tester reports for plane/quad/rover/jugglebot and I'll integrate your feedback...

# 1.7.07

• SimpleUI: Move status messages into their own fragment (and make them update even if fragment is not visible)
• SimpleUI: Try to guess likely modes the user would want and put them as buttons at the bottom of the screen
• SimpleUI: Show the bluetooth device connect/disconnect button
• SimpleUI: Prompt user with extra dialog if they try especially dangerous mode switches (disconnecting or disarming while we think the vehicle is flying etc...)
• I played around with the profiler a bit and many operations should now be a bit faster
• When connected by bluetooth, show proper vehicle state on the icon
• Make popup modal bar appear in correct position on portrait 7" displays
• Show HDOP (horizontal position precision) in the gps display
• Only enable arm menu item if we have a heartbeat from the vehicle
• Fix the bug where mode changes would be announced twice
• Fix some minor display glitches
• Add support for profiling/tracing when in developer mode
• Fix a couple more rare autobugs
• SimpleUI: Lots more coming in the next releases...

One thing that made this simplification possible is that I now try to model the vehicle state (flying, not flying etc...) in the GCS.  It is possible that I have errors in this state machine - if that happens, the 'new' buttons on the bottom of the screen won't work.  If that happens you can still use the old menu items as a work-around (please file a bug if you see this problem). 

You'll need to join a special G+ group if you want to get the beta release (the slick new way Google allows users to opt-in for beta test builds).  Instructions are here.  Otherwise wait a week and it will be pushed to general availability. 

For general support on Andropilot please post a new discussion in our group and I'm sure someone will lend a hand.

This is the first major release in a while.  It adds a bunch of small features to copter (including geofence).  

1.7.00
* Add support for copter style fences (plane was already supported)
* Dramatically speed up parameter download over low quality links
* We now show progress bar as parameters are being downloaded
* Update autodocs for parameters
* Update google play services

You'll need to join a special G+ group if you want to get the beta release (the slick new way Google allows users to opt-in for beta test builds).  Instructions are here.  Otherwise wait a week and it will be pushed to general availablity.

For general support on Andropilot please post a new discussion in our group and I'm sure someone will lend a hand.

Hi ya'll,

So yesterday the 'free' database I was using for droneshare filled up (wow!  some days you are uploading 100 flights a day).  3D Robotics was already providing the web hosting (yay!) and now MongoLab has donated six months of database hosting.  So if you need to use a MongoDB for any of your projects, please consider using MongoLab.

(I thought it was appropriate to thank them somehow)

I frequently read posts where folks 'think' their vehicle was in mode X or the battery was 'probably' getting low.  And then they crash...  Please read on for how to avoid this...

So the main reason I wrote Andropilot was that I wanted an easy way to know what was happening to my vehicle out at the field.

If you can afford to spend $100 and have an Android device, I think many of us would recommend that you run (not walk) to do the following things ;-):

• Buy this (or the version appropriate for your country) ($85) (some small assembly will be required for this kit)
• Buy this USB adapter ($2) (correct for most Androids, if not sure ask in the forum or read our wikis)
• Download either Andropilot or Droidplanner (free!)
• Plug in the radio
• Start seeing live data from your vehicle

After you do this:

• No longer will you need to remember 6 mode switch positions.  If you change modes from the tablet or radio, a voice will tell you what happens
• If your vehicle enters a failsafe mode, your phone will tell you
• You will always know where your vehicle is
• If it is running low on power or doesn't see GPS, your phone will verbally warn you
• As you come into land your phone will talk you through each altitude
• If you want your vehicle to go somewhere, you click on the screen and choose GOTO.  etc...
• You can draw a practice box and if your vehicle leaves it it will recover (plane only - see wiki instructions)

Sorry to be so blunt, but <$100 is a great added safety feature even for beginners...

Hi ya'll,

So Droneshare has become popular enough I was running out of compute resources on my free Heroku instance.  3D Robotics has been kind enough to donate an EC2 instance in their cluster, so I've moved Droneshare over to their server.

For those not familiar, droneshare is an optional/free way to share your flights/tlogs/param files with friends.  Support for uploading to droneshare is built into the Andropilot ground control system.  Drag-and-drop upload is also included on the webpage (though its features are currently a bit limited).

Droneshare/andropilot should work with any vehicle that uses tlog files or mavlink.

Key features of droneshare:

• View flights on google maps or earth
• Download auto generated KML files
• Download auto extracted PARAM files
• Basic parameter plotting (eventually hopefully someone else will make the plotting much nicer)
• Warn about param files with suspicious values
• Sharing links so you can share your flight with G+ or facebook

If you are a dev and want instructions on how to add support to your GCS for droneshare uploads, just send me a note (in short, just a REST PUT with a few params).  Eventually I'll be setup to have other devs help out with the development of droneshare - but I still haven't done some cleanup I need to do. (Before sharing the source I need to change amazon authentication so API access can't leak)

Any questions/ideas/feedback on droneshare/andropilot are always welcome...

Kevin

Hi ya'll,

I just posted about this on the APM dev list, but it would be great to get some participation in a drones.stackexchange site.  For those not familar stackexchange/stackoverflow is a great web format for asking questions and getting answers.  The person who asks the question marks the best answer (karma?) and (hopefully) a whole ecosystem of drone users helping other drone users develops.  I think it has the potential to be possibly an even better way of doing many of the Q&A type posts here on diydrones.

I've just created a proposal to have a drones.stackexchange.com, and now is the point where stackexchange does an evaluation to see if there is enough interest to make the site.  Can you please help?

The steps are easy:

1. Go here and choose to follow this proposed group.
2. Post a sample question of the sort you'd think a drones Q&A site could answer.
3. Upvote the questions that you think are the best examples of the sort of Q&A a site like this could provide.
4. (optional) Please pass the word on various other drone sites.

After we pass the hurdle of 50 followers/upvoted questions then the site will go live and we'll see how useful it is (or is not).  I promise to promptly answer any andropilot questions ;-)

A couple of weeks ago Tridge mentioned an idea: It would be great if droneshare scanned uploaded tlogs for parameters that are outside of the recommended range. 

I've just now gotten around to adding this feature, so now any time you upload a flight via the webpage or Andropilot it will check the parameters against the recommended values in the APM source code.  If it sees a parameter outside of the recommended range it will show a warning.

If you see a warning for one of your vehicles, it is probably best to ask in the appropriate DIY drones forum.  It may be that the value you are using is fine and the comment in the source code is just wrong - I don't think these ranges have been used much in the past, so some errors are possible.

Here's a typical flight that has a warning.  

Also, I can now happily report that a few hundred new flights are being uploaded each week.

It seems the most of the bugs have been worked out, so I'm taking droneshare out of beta.  If you'd like to give it a shot it is now a standard feature of Andropilot, just pick a username and password in settings.

For instance, in the table above, here's the flights today (Norway, Canada and Estonia): 

(Also, if anyone is interested in hacking on droneshare - either the 'backend' or the javascript code, please send me a note and I'll share the git repo).

Hi ya'll,

So the Google maps 'My places' feature is a great way to share locations where UAV hobbyists can fly their vehicles.  Just have someone in your local club create a new 'my place' and then plop down a few markers with descriptions.  Once they have created the place, they can then click on "Collaborate" and list users who are allowed to edit the map (or even just let anyone edit it).

For each flying site, you can include site rules, pointers to websites etc...

For instance, here's the map the local San Francisco area pilots are maintaining.

Hi ya'll,

So the latest version of Andropilot now includes optional droneshare uploads so you can share your flights with friends.  

Other recent Andropilot features:

• Gamepad support
• Extra display panels for 10" tablets
• Strings are localized to allow non english versions (soon)
• Minor fixes for autobugs.

For download instructions please visit our support group. 

Hi ya'll,

I've added 'alpha test' support for the Archos Gamepad to Andropilot. I'll post a video soon and do a test flight with my Bixler before declaring it beta. Many thanks to Robert W, Earl C, Jack O, Linus P, Anthony G, Robert L, Jeremy Z and Rana for buying this tablet so I could develop this feature. I'll fly with it for the next few weeks and give occasional updates. I think it could be a winner for some applications, but it is not perfect.

Here's my mini review...

(For full history see Robert's great proposal)

Cons:

• Feels kinda cheap
• No gps (so no 'follow-me' or 'lead-it' mode)
• No bluetooth
• Screen needs an antiglare sticker before it will be usable in the sun

Pros:

• $130-$180
• Nice mode switching keys - I've set up/down arrow to cycle between the modes you selected as your six primary modes
• Nice info tab keys - I've set left/right arrow to cycle between screens
• Since R2 is just above your right joystick, I've bound that key to RTL as a 'panic' key
• Right joystick - aileron & elevator - seems to have 'okay' resolution. I suspect just fine for FBW flying or nudging, possibly painful for manual. I'll report back after flight testing
• Left joystick - throttle & rudder
• The L1 switch is very handy - I have it set-up to toggle geofence
• The 'start' button is by the right stick - press it to return joystick control to the RC transmitter

Misc notes on gamepad performance:

• Any time the app gets relaunched (because you brought another app to the foreground) I turn the built-in joysticks off. The next time you use the sticks they will be enabled again.
• When sticks are enabled/disabled the speech subsystem will make an announcement.

Conclusions:

•  If you don't want the integrated joysticks/buttons - I think you are probably better off with something approximately like the Nexus 7. However this is quite a fine tablet. After I've done some flying actually _using_ the sticks I can give feedback on if this could totally replace the RC transmitter.
• If this is able to replace the RC radio it becomes a much more appealing offering.  TBD... ;-)

Downloads are up in the usual place.

... DIYDrones member Pieter

Pieter was kind enough to send me this Bluetooth adapter.  As it turns out it was trivial to add support for using this device to talk to APMs.  Instructions are included below...

So, why would you want to do such a thing:

• You currently have no telemetry - in which case this is a definite step up (though I still think you'd be better off buying the 3dr radios)
• You have an android device that doesn't support USB host mode (list of tested devices here).  Just attach this little bluetooth adapter to a battery and your radio.  If your device supports USB host mode (especially if it has the rocking fast USB of Android 4.2 or later) I think you are better off just plugging your 3dr radio into your tablet directly.
• You have a XBee radio - I suspect that using XBee on Androids older than 4.2 would find that going through the bluetooth adapter to reach the tablet would be much faster.

Step 1: Send Deal Extreme $9 for this.

Step 2: Configure bluetooth adapter

These adapters come preconfigured for 9600 baud, you'll need to change them to 57600.  To do this, temporarily connect the provided cable to a FTDI serial adapter, connect to the device at 9600 baud and then paste in the following string "AT+BAUD7"<return>.  If the device responds with OK57600, you are good to go, otherwise try again.

Step 3: Connect bluetooth adapter to either a 3dr telemetry module (recommended) or directly to an APM board

To connect to the APM or a 3dr 900MHz radio, using the provided cable.  Pieter has reported 100 meter range and I tested it yesterday morning and sure enough I could remotely monitor my plane/make config changes as long as it was close.  

Step 4: Go to Android settings and pair your device with the bluetooth adapter.  The PIN is 1234.

Step 5: Fire up Andropilot 1.2.00 or later.  See our discussion group for download links etc...

Hi ya'll,

I'm developing a new drone sharing webapp:  www.droneshare.com.   Here's a screenshot, see below for more information...

So, while I was developing Andropilot I found myself frequently asking folks to send in tlog files for debugging.  Then later a discussion started about web based control and monitoring of Mavlink connected vehicles.  I decided to make a webapp to address both issues and hopefully enable easy sharing of flights here and on facebook etc...

If you'd like to alpha test something new, I'd really appreciate any feedback you have to offer.  We can discuss ideas by replying to this post or starting a thread in our new discussion group.

The current feature set is pretty limited, but I suspect features will be added quickly.  Current features:

• Upload of multiple tlogs through a drag-and-drop UI
• Google maps & earth view
• Download of annotated kmz files
• Auto extraction of APM 'param files' from tlogs
• A basic plotting view
• A parameters browser (with documentation)
• Basic stats display

Features that should come soon (in the next couple of weeks):

• Automatic optional uploads from Andropilot (if other GCS developers want to add droneshare support send me a note and I can provide the easy instructions)
• Grouping flights by user handles
• Browsing flights based on distance etc...
• data channels for the plot view

Features that will come a little later:

• Achievements/badges
• Real time upload, display & control via 3G

Some more screenshots...

Hi ya'll. With the kind help of a number of testers, wiki writers and users it seems like Andropilot is now out of beta.  So if you'd like an Android based ground control station I think is is basically ready for general deployment.  You can download it from the Play store as "Andropilot".

See our group here (link includes feature list, required hardware and getting started guide)

And the very nice wiki user manual curated by Peter Meister (please help by adding to it).  There are a few missing features, but the daily new releases are basically over.  Every couple of weeks there should a minor release.

If you have questions, please start a new thread in the group and hopefully someone can help you.  (I'll be mostly away from the forum for the next couple of weeks)

So,

I recently posted in a forum about how to add 3G uplink to a UAV model.  This project seems really fun to me, so I'm thinking about writing the software to make it happen (a little web server and some new features for Andropilot).  

However, the bummer is that some uses wouldn't be legal in the USA (given the current harsh FAA interpretation we need to operate under - <400 ft, visual range of control).  

To make sure this app/feature was used 'correctly', I would have it check to see if you are in a 'long range control is legal' country.  If not legal, I'd have it automatically send a mavlink RTL command if you got more than x (1?) km away from the home location.  

My question:

• Are there countries where unrestricted long range control are legal?
• If you are in such a country, are you willing to put a (cheap) android phone into your plane and give this a shot?  If you are, I'd probably be willing to make the software/servers go.

Kevin

So a few weeks ago I started writing a ground controller for Android (using a spiffy mavlink library - see credits).  With the help of a few kind alpha testers, it seems to work pretty well now.

Current features:

• Direct control & monitoring of ArduPlane/Copter with no PC required.  Just a $5 USB adapter cable and your Android tablet or phone (Android 3.1 or later).  No rooting or hardware mods required.
• Map view
• Parameter editing
• Waypoint editing
• Vehicle mode display & control (AUTO, STABILIZE, etc...)
• Capture tlog files to sdcard
• Direct connect to USB on the APM
• 3DR telemetry module support
• Warnings for low battery, low rssi, or low GPS sat count
• Fully android 'native' (Scala backend talks directly to the USB device and renders the frontend)
• Most of the early nasty bugs seem gone... thus the beta...

Not ready now but should be in soon:

• UDP link (either as a client or a server)

I think we are now ready for more testers (and devs - if you want to add a feature!).  You can download a binary from github.  Or wait a few hours and it will be up on the play store.  Developers - if you'd like to get started, I'm happy to help if you have questions (getting it building etc...)

WARNING: This is beta test software.  If you are using it with your vehicle I recommend the following:

• Don't edit parameters in flight (until we have lots of confirmation this works - it works fine for me, but you know how things go...)
• Keep your RC controller close at hand and be ready to use it to force the vehicle into Stablize or some other 'safeish mode'.  Watch the vehicle carefully when it hits waypoints
• If you think anything is not working safely, unplug the radio from the tablet

If you have comments/questions/ideas please post on the discussion thread.

Hi ya'll,

So I started off by writing some software to have an arduplane fly in formation with a human piloted hang-glider.   I still plan to finish this project, but I noticed there was a lack of an Android ground controller for Mavlink/Arduplane.  Since much of the code I was writing for my formation flying project was in Scala, it was pretty easy for me to make it into a ground controller for Android.  Most of the work was in getting USB host mode to work talking to the FTDI part in the 3dr telemetry module.

I've just completed a very early alpha release.  The code is up on github.  You'll need a phone/tablet running Android 3.1 or later with USB host mode support - most 'high end' phones have this feature.  

You'll also need one of these (or similar):

The initial release just provides a basic map,mode display/control, and mavlink log capture.  This early version is up on the Google Play Store as a free application.  If you have success running it, please post here.  If you find failure and tragedy, please post a bug on github (and mention it here if you wish). 

For the latest updates on this fast changing project or to comment, please see the following thread. (No blog moderation delay)

Comments/Questions?

Above is a (crummy photo) of it talking to my Bixler in my living room...

And a screenshot...