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!
Comments
@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.
Awesome! Any chance that you will make it opensource so we can contribute to this project?
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?
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
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
Update as promised here: http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/ios-groundstation-on-indiegogo
It sure is - new update coming soon...
Hello. Is this project still active? I'm very interested. Thanks.
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...