Navio+, Awsome flight controller from Emlid. Tested with 4G Cellular communications

Hi Everyone.

I would like to share my experience using navio+ as flight controller.

At first when discovered navio i was a little skeptic if this board could really be as good as it looks. I read all the documentation over at Emlid.com and i finally decides to order one for testing.

When i got my hands on this board, i immediately fell in love. Nice layout and solid connectors and at last, this board fits beautifully on top of the RPI.

Then i installed Real Time Kernel for RPI and Ardupilot. Installation went painless, just following theirs instruction line by line.

An important note! You dont need to be a linux geek to get this going. Everyone is able to put this togheter.

After the installation is complete, you can launch anyone of the supported vehicles:

APMrover2
ArduPlane
ArduCopter-quad
ArduCopter-tri
ArduCopter-hexa
ArduCopter-y6
ArduCopter-octa
ArduCopter-octa-quad
ArduCopter-heli
ArduCopter-single

Typical ArduPilot start command:

sudo ArduPlane -A udp:<GCS_DYNDNS>:14550

Then just use Mission Planner and connect using UDP option.

So after several days with bad and ruff wheatear, the sun was finally shining and i immediately packed up for maden flight.

Today i was flying for 60min using Navio+ as flight controller and 4G for video and telemetry.

I have one word; Awesome.

My aircraft Skua FPV was rock solid after running Autotune function.

My setup:

Navio +
RPI 2
4G USB Cellular adapter
Logitech C920 webcam with gstreamer
Logitech Gamepad F710
GCS ( My Laptop with Mission Planner )
Airframe Skua FPV

This brilliant board keeps everything in one piece, specially when using 4G / 3G cellular. There is no need for extra converters as i used before with APM or pixhawk in conjunction with RPI.

I simply connect the 4G usb to RPI2 and start the Ardupilot with UDP telemetry option. Simple as that.

Guys at Emlid currently works to get the Odroid-C1 support for Navio+ .

APM autopilot port for Navio+ currently works with:

Raspberry Pi Model A
Raspberry Pi Model B
Raspberry Pi Model A+
Raspberry Pi Model B+
Raspberry Pi 2 Model B

I will post an "HowTo configure RPI, Navio+ and Cellular network" at my website: UAVmatrix.com

So for those of you that are skeptic, try it. you won’t be disappointed.

Emlid gives you great and fast support at theirs community section.

Regards

Bernt Christian Egeland

The big disappointment with this project is , lets say you have all the setup done and loaded to your drone. Then you take your laptop with 4g dongle on it out. Your expectation is you should be able to get the video and telem link the way you tested with your home internet. But it is not. None of US 4G providers allow you to use your 4G internet as server. Your visible public address is shared between tons of devices even if you get your assigned 4g ip address on the laptop by ipconfig and update your dynamic dns manually, The 4G providers server firewall will not let the raspi to send any data to opened port with GCS or gstreamer on ground station. If you some how can fix this ( a.if you fly from home and your gound station is connected to home internet b. your provider have port forwarding service available ) then it will work. The other workaround I got some results was a software I wrote to redirect ports on my home PC. This wat both raspi and ground station will be clients and talk to my pc with valid IP and open ports on it. Then the app bridge the ports between GCS and raspi. The down side of this approach is latency , Good side of it is it works independently from all 4G or internet providers.

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Comments

sami ahmari November 4, 2015 at 1:25pm

Tim,

I will setup VPN server on my home PC and will test it tonight. lets see if it works. I will share the results.
Tim V November 3, 2015 at 4:58pm

Sami,

I hear ya, and do not have a clear/good answer at the moment. Thus testing with vpn as a hack. I do know once clients are connected to the same vpn, it is possible to communicate to multiple hosts on the vpn.

Again, will test to confirm/validate.

Cheers!
sami ahmari November 3, 2015 at 4:52pm

Hi Tim, I would love to here about how you setup the VPN which I don't have any experience with it. the problem is not the static IP which can be easly solved with dynamic dns service like noip.com . The problem is nobody can reach to an open port on 4g over the internet :( firewall blocks all. I talked to t mobile there is no such a service to have access to this feature.
Tim V November 3, 2015 at 4:46pm

Sami,

I am in the states as well, and was working through the same setup, on the bench with AT&T/SW 313U and 340U tomorrow. To your point, I am considering OpenVPN, with client on the Navio+ and Laptop/GCS as a possible workaround. This may be a little heavy with latency, and will find out shortly.

I spoke with the consumer side at AT&T and no static IP's possible. Next will be to speak with Business peeps and see what is offered for the modems and costs.

The other possibility is some big ass, HIGH power WiFi, and maybe some homegrown boosting. ;) When one is out in the booneys with the sage brush and jackrabbits, well not much to hurt or fry.

Cheers!
sami ahmari November 3, 2015 at 3:59pm

The big disappointment with this project is , lets say you have all the setup done and loaded to your drone. Then you take your laptop with 4g dongle on it out. Your expectation is you should be able to get the video and telem link the way you tested with your home internet. But it is not. None of US 4G providers allow you to use your 4G internet as server. Your visible public address is shared between tons of devices even if you get your assigned 4g ip address on the laptop by ipconfig and update your dynamic dns manually, The 4G providers server firewall will not let the raspi to send any data to opened port with GCS or gstreamer on ground station. If you some how can fix this ( a.if you fly from home and your gound station is connected to home internet b. your provider have port forwarding service available ) then it will work. The other workaround I got some results was a software I wrote to redirect ports on my home PC. This wat both raspi and ground station will be clients and talk to my pc with valid IP and open ports on it. Then the app bridge the ports between GCS and raspi. The down side of this approach is latency , Good side of it is it works independently from all 4G or internet providers.
Gary McCray June 3, 2015 at 9:09pm

RPi2 looks like the current preferred Linux platform (better than BBB), so I am really happy to see this board available and already this level of integration with APM.

Best Regards,

Gary
benbojangles May 19, 2015 at 3:40am

Thanks. This is interesting. I have received my Rpi2, pi camera, & wikipad - I am hoping to use all three to stream to my wikipad.... Eventually...
Stephen Gloor May 18, 2015 at 5:27pm

@benbojangles - you should be able to just plug in the APM2.6 to the Raspi2 with the USB connection.

If you run Mavproxy on the Raspi2 it will automatically find the USB connection as it looks for any serial connections when it starts up. The RasPi2 also has to be connected via a normal 3G/4G modem.

python /usr/local/bin/mavproxy.py --logfile=/home/pi/mav.tlog --out=192.168.1.10:14550 --out=113.212.169.25:14550

This will start Mavproxy and then send the UDP packets to 192.168.1.10:14550 on the local network and 113.212.169.25:14550 which is my fixed 3G address.

If I connect to the internet via 3G with my fixed IP address sim then I will receive the packets and APM planner which looks automatically on 14550 will show the telemetry stream.
benbojangles May 18, 2015 at 10:01am

Hello again, May I ask, do you think it is possible to use Rpi2 + 4G to control Mavlink commands on a standard APM 2.6? For example - when changing flight mode from GCS - Sending up to Rpi2?

- Rpi2 then sends Mavlink command to APM 2.6?

I notice that Navio uses Rpi2 as processor for APM code - but what about letting APM 2.6 do it's normal processing, and just use Rpi2 + 4G passthrough for commanding? Like GSM telemetry module? But also the Rpi2 send video using Gstreamer. I'm sure it is easy to wire tx/rx from Rpi2 to APM?

Do you know of any way to send Mavlink commands over UDP/network?

Thanks

gsm telemetry - Google Search
Bernt Christian Egeland May 9, 2015 at 2:09pm

I made an ARTICLE which explains my configuration. Happy Flying. :)

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