Blogs

The latest version of Mission Planner for Event 38 has just been released and we have some exciting new features to share. We often develop these items specifically for our aircraft but I like to hear back from the DIY Drones community what features, if any, you think would be useful to have. If anything looks interesting, let me know and we'll work to get it into the main Mission Planner development branch. As always, you can download our version as-is on our Downloads Page.

Preflight Checklist

The Preflight Checklist has been updated to help ensure that the proper mission and camera are selected prior to takeoff. After checking the box next to Valid Waypoints, Mission Planner will download the waypoints off the drone and display them on the Flight Data screen's map for inspection.

If your drone uses multiple different cameras, you can select the camera used for each flight and check the checkbox to upload the correct parameters to trigger the camera.

Inflight Monitoring

The new inflight monitoring section is an easy way to tell at a glance if there is anything that needs the operator's attention. By default, it checks for low altitude, excessive groundspeed, orientation, GPS satellites, excessive current draw, and servo voltage. You can access and adjust the parameters or add a new custom monitor by pressing ctrl+p. 

Perimeter Run

The edges of a mission tend to have the least overlap. In cases where it's difficult to overfly neighboring areas or where it's critical that the full mission area have maximum overlap, it can make sense to run a lap around the edges of the mission area taking pictures. We've programmed this route to be added automatically when you select the Perimeter Run checkbox in the Survey/Grid screen.

Tuning Averages

This one is mostly for internal and testing use, but if you want to keep a particularly close eye on certain parameters in flight, we've added a min, max and average readout to the tuning graph and added the ability to set the time scale. We use this for trend monitoring on production aircraft.