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iPad Ground Control Station

Posted by Claudio Natoli on August 2, 2012 at 6:09am

Just wanted to share some progress on an iPad Ground Control Station app I've been putting together for a little while. Here's a quick introduction:

As the video shows, the (non-jailbroken) iPad is hooked up to a Digi XTend radio modem via a RedPark iPad-Serial cable and a RS232 Shifter, with the radio modem powered off a UBEC. It communicates with the APM via MAVLink just like the regular APM Mission Planner.

Have also used the iPad-Serial cable with a XBee and XBee Explorer Serial board with my other UAVs, which makes for a simpler hook-up.

Just a personal project at this stage, particularly as use of the RedPark cable limits the redistribution options available (i.e. not permitted on the App Store at present), but have a laundry list of features I'm hoping to add over time, and we'll see what happens on the device interface front - would like to make the app accessible to all if there's sufficient interest.

Thanks for reading - looking forward to any comments you might have!

control, ground, ipad, station

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Comments

Jonathan Lederer May 15, 2013 at 8:29am

@Lukas -- great idea. Hopefully developer of this fine project can allow for this great method for connectivity. I recently made myself an Ardupilot->Bluetooth->3DRadio->APM 2.5 dongle for about $15USD and it works quite well. In my opinion, this would be the best way to proceed as it would enable many potential users to cheaply adopt the necessary components to begin using this software. BRAVO TO DEVELOPER!! IT'S ABOUT TIME WE HAD A GCS FOR IOS!
Claudio Natoli May 11, 2013 at 4:04pm

@Peter - you're already in luck: https://github.com/cnatoli/igcs - looking forward to some pull requests :-)

@Lukas, you'll find some initial bluetooth support in the aforementioned repo.

While support for the RedPark serial cable (and a couple of other options) will be retained in the open source project, the primary focus of the core team is supporting the Fighting Walrus Radio (http://www.fightingwalrus.com/) which is an out-of-the-box option for those who don't wish to hack together their own iPad->radio solution.

cnatoli/iGCS

iOS Ground Control Station for drones. Contribute to cnatoli/iGCS development by creating an account on GitHub.
Peter Bistricky May 11, 2013 at 11:11am

Awesome! Any chance that you will make it opensource so we can contribute to this project?
Lukas Bures March 22, 2013 at 4:41am

could the app be made work with a bluetooth as mentioned in "http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/ten-dollar-telemetry-bluetooth-support-added-to-andropilot-thanks" without any extra hardware on the latest ipad?
Michael Duffy March 20, 2013 at 5:29am

Do you have the mavlink commands documented? I want to use Mavlink to hook up to my ground station which is not traditional Mission Planner.

Thanks,

Mike
Michael Duffy March 20, 2013 at 5:29am

Do you have the mavlink commands documented? I want to use Mavlink to hook up to my ground station which is not traditional Mission Planner.

Thanks,

Mike
Claudio Natoli March 17, 2013 at 5:11am

Update as promised here: http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/ios-groundstation-on-indiegogo
Claudio Natoli February 23, 2013 at 12:56am

It sure is - new update coming soon...
Thomas Gregg February 20, 2013 at 4:14pm

Hello. Is this project still active? I'm very interested. Thanks.
CharlieNoFun January 16, 2013 at 4:49pm

Maybe one day 3DR could work with Redpark to make a special 3DR modem for iPad :) I can dream right :) Redpark is just over in Emeryville if i'm not mistaken...