Nice post over at sUAS News:
The rain has finally subsided so I went out to the RC field for some quadcopter fiddling and testing.
The below video shows a quick demonstration of the Region Of Interest (ROI) function of Arducopter (running firmware v3.1.5). I demonstrate the function on the Steadidrone 2014 QU4D with 3DR Pixhawk and GoPro 3 Silver. The function allows the nose (and camera) of the quad to keep pointing at a designated point while flying an autonomous flight plan. In the video there is an explanation of how to set up the the ROI flight plan in Mission Planner as well as a demonstration flight with telemetry data provided by the 3DR 433Mhz Telemetry system.
These technologies still amaze me every day.
Comments
Wish I had seen this, before wasting half a day, and 100Km worth of petrol......
Just one question, how does the yaw behavior command influence this ?
is the same at 3.2 ? we must make DO SET ROI between 2 waypoints?
I have honestly not looked at connecting this 2 axis gimbal to the Pixhawk yet, just haven't gotten around to it and been flying the system as it came out of the box as much as possible. So I haven't looked at whether it can be connected to Pixhawk etc yet. O and its an Alexmos gimbal controller.
Once I get hold of a 3 axis gimbal I will install it onto the QU4D and make a video of the scenario you described above with the Pixhawk controlling the gimbal and trying out moving targets etc.
Cheers.
Hi,
yes i mean repeatable moving target (coordinates of the target over time (pre-)known) .
Or like "follow me" but just for the camera.
For the beginning a target in 20 m height like a treetop of a single tree would do it.
If it works the camera should look or down depending on the height.
So Pixhawk knows its position, the target position and the pwms at which the angle of the camera is horizontal and vertical.
In theory this should be enough to center the target all the time.
What is stopping you from connecting the gimbal controller to the pixhawk?
Which gimbal controller is it?
A 3d gimbal will definitely smooth out the yaw (if calibrated right).
Hi Francis, yes the pitch of the camera is fixed (45degrees in this video), the gopro is on a 2 axis stabilized (pitch and roll) brushless gimbal attached to the front of the quad (the front arms are set wider apart and the camera is mounted in front so help avoid getting the airframe/props in the footage). The pitch angle is adjustable via a rotary switch on the radio controller. i.e. this setup is not controlled by the Pixhawk, it has its own IMU (red block behind the foam behind the camera on the gimbal.)
Do you mean moving ROI as in a moving target or different ROI points on the ground throughout the flightplan?
I am looking at acquiring a 3 axis gimbal at some stage to be mounted beneath the copter and controlled by Pixhawk so once I get a system like that going I will definitely do a video or two with it.
If i see that right the pitch of the camera is fixed.
Is there a tutorial on ROI with a maybe moving point of interest and camera tilting?
Excellent demo. Thanks for sharing!
Very nice demo, I will try it out this weekend. Keep up the good work!
Thanks Darrell. I agree, very nice feature, the guys are doing a great job with the coding of AC and AP!
Nice demo and a great feature. Can't wait to try it out.