Posted by Jordi Muñoz on October 29, 2009 at 8:00pm
Hi there,I been thinking about create a simple and relative ground station to display information in a more useful way.Here is my idea:-Simple reference map, with actual position, distance and heading of the airplane relative to home.-Display waypoints relative to home.-Display information more like an OSD.-In the future click and drag waypoints with real time update (for ardupilot mega).-Overlay photos for offline use.-Multiple Aircrafts?-I would like to create two or three small airplane indicators for pitch, roll and yaw angle in a easy way to read, something like this:
But with real time rotating images,In the meantime you can download and play with the experiment i just did, is in labview 8.2 and 8.6 and also i compiled for Windows:newground.zip.
Oversize high contrast fonts with minimal wasted space is my vote. Likewise large high contrast analog dials with big font digital values below them...
I don't normally post comments, but after using many commercial GCS's but I would go away with aviation dials etc and just go with an excellent HUD as this provides all the information you need and number values. I just think its good to start with a basic layout that is professional from the start and add to it. SkyView GCS www.instrutmentcontrol.se has a great layout design, not saying we will get to that but its a start. Just my 2 cent worth.
Nice work guys. Is there a writeup of the communications protocol between the ConfigTool and Groundstations(s) and Ardupilot. I just asked this on the Ardupilot thread before discovering this discussion. I plan to use this on the UAVX quadrocopter autopilot as well as my Ardupilot on conventional kit.
Wouldn't this be pretty straightforward using Processing? ( http://processing.org ) I've been meaning to create a simple groundstation there for a while, but I never get around to it. My plan is to make nice looking elements in Photoshop and Illustrator and rotate or slide them around in 2D using Processing, based upon data parsed from a serial stream. That way the same code would run on a Mac, Windows, or Linux.
Could this be ported to Labview? I could provide PNG or Vector files of all the controls.
Flash is really great except for the lack of Serial port access. Also the Security model can trip people up.
Jason, i think i'm in love with your station.. I Jack GS is also great for outdoors. We are always outdoors. But i'm only able to program something similar to Jack GS. ;-)
Hi Jordi,
This is what I use. It's built in Flash as I'd never heard of Labview before coming here.
Like your's I felt it was more important to design a panel that works for me than to replicate an actual aircraft controls.
Updates are 10hz
In the top left is the roll sensor which shows the aircraft moving away from me. That's easier for me to wrap my head around.
Lower left is Pitch
Upper right is distance to target in Meters
Lower rIght is climb rate in m/s
The center is the plane heading with the relative target WP. The floats around as you go towards or away from the target.
The white bars around the center ring are the control surfaces. I send the µs of the controls to see the action of the navigation and stabilization system.
The timers are for total mission time and time between current waypoints.
The map is a Flash based Google Maps object to plot the location, path, and target vectors of the plane in real-time. In the future I will add WP manipulation. Until then I use a Perl script to parse KML files to use as waypoints. The map also toggles to full screen, but otherwise is a fully functional Google map.
The lower panel is for sending messages to the plane. Right now you need a second Arduino in the air for that.
I'm including a copy of my AP which has the print functions needed to interface with this. The GPS parser anticipates two-way comm, because I though the new shield with Serial Mux would allow me to do two way comm without the second Arduino. My shield seems to be non-functional so I can't test it.
The AP has a test mode which uses a turnrate estimator and a fake GPS and radio to turn it into a simulation of the plane flying the course which is plotted realtime on the map. You need to physically turn the plane to fly it at your desk.
The key commands are to connect to the Serial Port, again to reset the clocks.
toggles the map and centers it on the plane.
To connect to the serial port in flash you need a middle man app called Serproxy. Basically Adobe doesn't want to write this so someone else had to.
Here's the Code. Please don't fly it. It's still experimental and requires mods to the Ardupilot board and I wouldn't want to be responsible for your plane. But it is OK for testing on the bench.
Jason
Comments
http://www.instrumentcontrol.se/index.php/products/skyviewgcs
Peter
Thanks
Greg
Flash is really great except for the lack of Serial port access. Also the Security model can trip people up.
Let me know if I can provide any assistance.
This is what I use. It's built in Flash as I'd never heard of Labview before coming here.
Like your's I felt it was more important to design a panel that works for me than to replicate an actual aircraft controls.
Updates are 10hz
In the top left is the roll sensor which shows the aircraft moving away from me. That's easier for me to wrap my head around.
Lower left is Pitch
Upper right is distance to target in Meters
Lower rIght is climb rate in m/s
The center is the plane heading with the relative target WP. The floats around as you go towards or away from the target.
The white bars around the center ring are the control surfaces. I send the µs of the controls to see the action of the navigation and stabilization system.
The timers are for total mission time and time between current waypoints.
The map is a Flash based Google Maps object to plot the location, path, and target vectors of the plane in real-time. In the future I will add WP manipulation. Until then I use a Perl script to parse KML files to use as waypoints. The map also toggles to full screen, but otherwise is a fully functional Google map.
The lower panel is for sending messages to the plane. Right now you need a second Arduino in the air for that.
I'm including a copy of my AP which has the print functions needed to interface with this. The GPS parser anticipates two-way comm, because I though the new shield with Serial Mux would allow me to do two way comm without the second Arduino. My shield seems to be non-functional so I can't test it.
The AP has a test mode which uses a turnrate estimator and a fake GPS and radio to turn it into a simulation of the plane flying the course which is plotted realtime on the map. You need to physically turn the plane to fly it at your desk.
The key commands are to connect to the Serial Port, again to reset the clocks.
toggles the map and centers it on the plane.
To connect to the serial port in flash you need a middle man app called Serproxy. Basically Adobe doesn't want to write this so someone else had to.
Here's the Code. Please don't fly it. It's still experimental and requires mods to the Ardupilot board and I wouldn't want to be responsible for your plane. But it is OK for testing on the bench.
Jason
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