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ArduPilot Ground Control Station ready for public beta testing

Posted by automatik on May 12, 2010 at 9:30pm

LabVIEW based ArduPilot Ground Control Station ( GCS) is ready for public beta test.

GCS wiki: See wiki for installation and configuration instructions (read through it, or at least watch video )

Requirements:

- Windows OS
- LabVIEW run time engine 9.0
- Google Earth ( if you already have it you don't have to re-install it. Google Earth version prior to 5.1 ( newest) should be fine)

- Ground Control Station application (zip file) - Updated May 16, 2010 !

Optional: Code for GCS can be found here ( you will need LabVIEW 8.6 or higher)

New Features of ArduPilot GCS :

Data logging
kml logging
voice synthesis
(UI has been redesigned, code architecture has been changed, etc.)

Short introduction video explaining how to start and stop GCS:

http://vimeo.com/11772440

more comprehensive GCS video ( worth watching ! ) is here:

http://vimeo.com/11608873

control, gcs, ground, station

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Comments

zafar iqbal March 24, 2014 at 9:10pm

i am working on project to show google earth on labview but i am geting the error. the snap of error is attached with VI which i downloaded from forum. i am new user of to the Labview and found it good tool for pograming. i dont know why i am recieving the error any help would be loudly appreciated.

currently i am using LAbview 2012(64 bit)

GE installed is version 7.1.2.2041

windows 7 64 bit

thanks for the help
Tomasz Muav January 16, 2014 at 4:19am

Do I need the Ardustation hardware to decode the mavlink packets using this application ?

I am trying to run the Ardupilot GCS LabView App, and I have problems with recieved data format.

I am connecting to APM2.5 with #DR telemetry kit, but I am recieving "bad data".
BriFly July 31, 2010 at 9:16pm

As far as the altitude is concerned is this displayed in meters? Along the same line, when i plug in my ArduPilot and I start receiving telemetry the GCS displays an altitude even though my airplane is on the ground. Is this elevation above sea level? How can you easily tell what your aircraft height is from its home location when flying?
Rana June 20, 2010 at 10:05pm

Hi Automatik !

Thanks for addessing my issue !
At the time when the airplane symbol was not moving and the plane was airborne, even at that time all the telemetry like IMuU data & GPS lat longs were coming very well, so no com issue.

Pl. have trust on my feedback and just look into it. When I am looking into the data folder, I am surprised, there is no kml log file created TXT log files of two flights are ceated bt those files do not have any data inside them. Well, I have atached them for your reference.
ArduPilot_DataLog_2010_06_20_09_49_42.txt

ArduPilot_DataLog_2010_06_20_16_56_39.txt
ArduPilot_DataLog_2010_06_20_19_48_15.txt
ArduPilot_DataLog_2010_06_20_20_00_52.txt

Automatic, can you please make this small feature upgradation in the GS so that based on the home position lat long and the current lat longs, every time the GS should display the distance of the plane from the home location. Automatik, it will certainly add more valaue to the GS.

Thanks & Best Regards

Rana

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automatik June 20, 2010 at 9:05pm

Hi Rana,
for "the airplane symbol which keeps on moving whereever the plane moves, did not moved at all though the other telemetry was cominh like lat longs and IMU etc. " take a lok at the data log file ( text log file) and see what the walues for roll and pitch are for the time frame when you experianced issues. Data is logged as it comes to GCS, and GCS just displays it - so if you have com issues, or changed the AP code or.... it might manifest itself like that.

As when there are no waypoints - currently all that is handled in AP and GCS just displays the data - there is no "high logic" in GCS as of now. We could change that in future....

Index of /
Rana June 20, 2010 at 11:01am

Automatik, during our few flights, I have observed that the airplane symbol which keeps on moving whereever the plane moves, did not moved at all though the other telemetry was cominh like lat longs and IMU etc.

I have also observed one thing and that is the distance shown by the GS from Waypoint 0 or subsequent was some times not displayed timely and not displayed correctly however GPS Lat Long telemetrY data was getting updated every second.

Automatik, one thing more its a feedback from my side, by default, if the plane is not navigating waypoints, it must display the ground distance of the plane from the home location.

Thanks & Best Regards

Rana
Peter Seddon May 31, 2010 at 8:46am

With automatik's very kind help I managed to fix the problem with his GCS not working. It was down to my using a version of APilot2.6 that was not giving the expected serial data output that confused the LabView parser. Using the latest version of APilot 2.6 everything works correctly.

Thanks! Peter
Taylor Cox May 19, 2010 at 3:46pm

Actually.. disregard my last post...it's working now......however..my battery meter is still showing that my battery is always full
Taylor Cox May 19, 2010 at 3:44pm

@Automatik............here is my KML file....remember ..my problem is that on google earth it won't zoom into my plane..even though my lat and long data is being showed on the GCAPflight_2010_05_19_15_37_15.kml

https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3692043518?profile=original
Peter Seddon May 19, 2010 at 6:58am

I re-installed NI-VISA (hmm, the readme file does not mention either LabView 9 or Windows 7 as being specifically supported) and things seem to be slightly better with the GCS.

I can now start the GCS up, get some data that makes GE work, Stop it cleanly and restart it. However still no indication of the mode and if anything goes wrong at the start up then all sorts of weird things happen such as position co-ordinates being way off or still at 0 - and it will not Stop. I am starting GCS and allowing GE to open and settle before switching the Ardupilot on. The Xbee at the PC is connected all the time whilst the XBee at the AP gets powered up with the rest of the airplane - is it critical that the GCS sees all the data from the AP - some maybe missing as the Xbee sorts itself out.

Does that give any further clues as to what may be happening?

Peter