It has come to my attention that people are not noticing this amazing app that is being produced for Android to give full missionplanner functionality and more using Mavlink to your UNMODIFIED android device
Features: Follow Me (If you device has GPS, you can set your plane or copter to follow me and it will circle or hover above your point or trail behind you as you run for it :)
Parameters (Droidplanner has a Parameters screen which allows you to correct your parameters in flight from your android device, no laptops to lug around!
Accelerometer Calibration Droidplanner has Horizon calibration to allow you to calibrate your copter in the field, which can be a life saver if you go miles to fly and find the horizon is off.)
Flightpath Planning Droidplanner Offers the ability to program your way points onto google maps with options for default altitude and more, it is very user friendly and works well!
Remote control Aircraft from app. (This app has a very special feature which allows you to Control your model from the app using a touch screen interface, this means if something went wrong and you could not use your controller, or you have a friend who wants to try flying but do not have a buddy system, you can use this feature to control your Model!)
Remote control Camera Gimble (A feature unique to Droid planner allows you to control a camera gimple plugged into the apm from the App, this means rather than buying two controllers or modifying your controller to add extra control for the camera, simply switch to camera control and you have full ability to adjust the camera position as you like.)
Live Horizon and Map view with telemetry data Switch to the flight data Tab and have full telemetry view with vocal alerts, Altitude Number of sattelites, position shown on map, Airspeed and ground speed, level and more.
These are some of the Prominent features of Droid planner, but there is so much more!.
If you want to know how to connect the MAVlink dongle to your android device it is very simple, you need to buy a chep usb to micro usb (depending on your device) adpater from somewhere like ebay or amazon, plug the one end into android device, the other into the MAV link and thats it!
Check it out, completely FREE
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.droidplanner
(update by mh)
You need aUSB OTG cable.
List of compatible Android devices.
(end update)
Comments
hmm i do not think that is a viable option, the board has to process the stuff it sends out and constantly streaming the pids may be to much for it, i do not know if this is really a problem but i am just thinking about the limited processing power of it.
That being said, the only issue I think could be improved is if it were possible to have PIDs updated in real-time or at least automatically refresh so that if you are in the field tuning a parameter via a rotary knob on channel 6 you could see the changes as they are applied. Maybe it's specific to m installation, but currently for some reason, the only way to have the change in a PID parameter reflect a radio induced alteration is for me to switch screens or briefly enter settings and then immediately back out and then it shows the changed value.
Thanks ever o much for this brilliant piece of work. BRAVO! Hope you get an A+ on this project. Look for nicely sized donation from me in the near future...you definitely deserve it (in addition to great reviews on the software itself)!!
@Josh Potter
Mostly I use DroidPlanner for the battery discharge notification, that tell me every 5% drop in charge. And when changing flight modes.
And if you don't like you can just not use it :). Trying to fly a sailplane with a tablet beeping at you could be a very annoying experience.
@Mark Harrison
One of the best options is the Nexus 7 + a 3DR ground radio + a USB OTG cable.
- Can anybody recommend a (hopefully cheap!) android pad to run this on?
- Do I need any special thing besides the 3DR ground radio to connect this?
Falcon Northwest Gamin Laptop its 3 years old now but has an I7 2Ghz 8GB ram nvidia 240M they designed alienware computers before dell bought them out.
What kind of laptop do you have? Mine's a hotrod, and I still get about 2 hours out of it. That's sort of the low end as I understand it. Typical laptops are more like 4 hours now.
Well i am pretty sure most users will find it useful, for more than just telemetry, because some people do not own laptops and most people who do have one with a poor battery life like mine, my laptop is a high spec pc that only get 45mins max so taking it to the field is not viable as it will ruyn out of power, but also because the android app does everything you need it to do, i do not want to carry my laptop outside every time i go for a configuration flight, i do not want to carry my laptop to the field just in-case i need to calibrate something etc...
You are an out-lier as i am sure most would agree this app is far more useful that mission planner, but understand it is not a complete replacement, it is an alternative and both have pros and cons.
Things like touch control and voice commands are the bells and whistles that make it attractive, they may not be practical to some but others will find it very useful, say you want the copter to return to launch, simply say, copter return to launch , this sort of feature would be great in my opinion.
Of course the laptop isn't attached to my transmitter.
Someone people just don't understand that not everyone needs that much information attached to their transmitter, and these generally are the same people that have a desire to try and fly a quad with awful touch controls, or want apm control "voice commands".
Neat and cool does not always equal useful.
The app is really outstanding! Thanks a lot to Arthur!
-
9
-
10
-
11
-
12
-
13
of 13 Next