3689417928?profile=originalI've modified Phillip Anthony Smith's Mavlink Ardustation to support an inexpensive tilt/pan antenna platform. RAM is very tight in the software so this is not a laptop/ground station replacement and the original software was oriented towards APM. However, I've been flying many flights with Arducopter 2.0.x and this antenna and have gotten pretty good video performance with much less multipath interference. I still use a second Xbee on a notebook with the Mission Planner and that seems to work pretty well with the Ardustation. This link gives some more details, a demo video of the software with some explanation of the added screens, and the software itself for others to play with. The software is a little rough since it was developed quickly before the 4th of July weekend, but it is fun to watch the antenna follow the quad and I wanted to give a little back to the Arducopter community.

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  • Heino, I'm getting ready to update my tracker to this one:

    http://www.fpvpilot.com/Pages/AntennaTrackingStations.aspx

    Very good mechanism. I plan to add a GoPro to it so need something a little more stable than the readymaderc kit.

    It doesn't use gears so I imagine I need to adjust something in the code? Can you point me to the place in the code that needs to be modified?

  • Ahhh I suppose I found it :)

    http://diydrones.com/forum/topics/ardustation-2-version-2-0-15-rele...

  • Hi Heino, do you have a link to the 2.0.15 code or the new forum link? I'm on 2.6 now and 2.4 now with mavlink 1.0. 

  • Jack,  

    I just uploaded version 2.0.15 for Mavlink 1.0.  There is a separate Ardustation forum post describing the release. 

    Heino

  • Heino:

     

    Thanks I figured you were waiting for the trunk to stabalize and 2.6 release. I am loading 2.6 now and will be doing some tresting after that I will look forword to testing your update.

  • Hi Jack,

    I'll release it tonight - I've had it ready and tested with the previous GIT trunk but was waiting for the 2.6 beta release which is happening right now. I'll retest with the Arducopter since there were Mavlink 1.0 changes over the weekend.

    Heino

  • Heino

     

    Is 2.0.15 comming soon with Mav 1.0 support. I am going to update my stuff for the Sparkfun event and wanted to update my Ardustation as well but it needs to suport Mav. 1.0

    Just curious.

     

    Jack

  • Joachim,

    I'm glad that the servo reversing is working for you and you're up and running. Version 2.0.15 is coming very soon - I'm testing it now with Mavlink 1.0.

    Heino

  •  

    "Pan.Write(180.0-Bearing_Home); // reversed pan servo rotation"

    Heino,

    i had to change the pan servo rotation, but with the big W in "Write" it gave a mistace. It must be written with a small "w", now it works!

    Joachim

     

     

     

     

  • Thanks Heino! First I'm going to test the original servo because I think it's ok. It just wasn't panning because I had too big of a battery on the pan tilt kit.

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