The ArduFGControl is a PC application which allows you to test and tune your Ardupilot CPU board with the Flight Gear Simulator. FlightGear is a free and an open source flight simulator developped by Curtis Olson. The ArduFGControl is a gateway between the Ardupilot board through the FTDI cable (com port) with FlightGear through the network UDP ports. The FlightGear model used here is a Rascal 110So, with this application you may test at home your Ardupilot during this cold winter...The full software can be downloaded at : http://code.google.com/p/ardupilotdev/downloads/listTested on Windows Vista SP2 on Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU T250 @2.00 Ghz ( perf ind: 4.8 )Have fun,Jean-Louis Naudin
With the rascal, I'm getting an awful amount of oscilations back and forth during route to waypoint. completely overshooting the bearing each time... Is this normal?
Hello Jean-Louis
This program seems to be exactly what my team is looking for. We are building our own autopilot system. Is it possible for your program to receive yaw controls in addition to pitch roll and throttle?
Glad to see you get working now. One most important to do with the FTDI cable is to set the RTS on close like this below :
I suggest you to dowload the latest version of the ArduFGControl v1.1 : here
with the updated version of ArduFlight v2.4.7 : here
In the latest version of the Arduflight v2.4.7, I have set the uplink rate to every 100 ms. This give a very smooth flight. See the FGSim tab : void print_data_emulator(void) // Output Datalink for the Flight Gear gateway
{
static unsigned long timer3=0;
static byte counter;
if(millis()-timer3 > 100) // Output Rate for FGS set to every 100 ms
{
digitalWrite(13,HIGH);
Serial.print("!!!");
.....
I have now tested the AduFGControl with Windows 7 and it work very well, my setup is :
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU P7450 @2.13 GHz 2.13 GHz
Performance indice = 5.6
Good virtual flights with the ArduPilot,
Regards,
Jean-Louis
Got PC screen back on, had to remove power and battery, restart and screen is back, I am using my HD-tv as external monitor, great for this Sim..
Windows 7 is now ordered... backup in progress....
Success at last !!, 1st ArduPilot sim flights to waypoints & RTH, I am using red Shield, but had problems when I set up Rascal110.h. I am using a USB RC Controller, turns out shield is not needed.., I had several blue screen crashes... ArduFlightControl may need a handshake, the USB FTDI driver hangs blue screen states Driver IRQ not equal or less, this happens after I close AFControl or re-plug USB connector, while trying to get ArduPilot to send/rec binary data. I running on A HP 60G-445DX notebook @2.2ghz 3gb RAM, Vista 32 SP1, no bluescreen until now. This is repeatable but, I haven't isolated issue yet.
I tried several changes to Rascal110.h to modify roll, pitch, throttle & heading gains , I program Arduino-16 with MacBookPro @2.4ghz 2gb RAM, OS-x 10.5.8, so I move FTDI USB connector to Mac then to PC to run new gain changes. When I connect to PC, FTDI won't connect, (no flashing LEDs) I reset power to ArduPilot or re-plug USB, and press Reload on AFControl, This works sometimes. Once comms are established all is good, just no reliable startup... All suggestion are welcom.. and now PC won't startup.. blank screen...
Hello NS Rana,
In the latest update of the 2.4.7, I have added the NextWP Uplink command which ask the Ardupilot to go to Next Wp.
From the Gateway to the ArduPilot :
&&&LAT:3762895,LON:-12239454,ALT:285,ASP:31,GSP:31,PHI:-16.511066,THE:-1.549248,GCS:263,MOD:4+++
Here somme commands that can be now send to the ArduPilot :
MOD:0 = Manual Mode
MOD:2 = Wp mode
MOD:3 = RTH
MOD:4 = go to Next WP
(MOD:1 and MOD:5 are under tests).
See the "system.pde"
Comments
http://mirrors.ibiblio.org/pub/mirrors/flightgear/ftp/Aircraft-2.0....
Following link to Plane "Rascal_0.1" is not working
http://mirrors.ibiblio.org/pub/mirrors/flightgear/ftp/Aircraft/Rasc...
pl. update for the link in your blog.
This program seems to be exactly what my team is looking for. We are building our own autopilot system. Is it possible for your program to receive yaw controls in addition to pitch roll and throttle?
Glad to see you get working now. One most important to do with the FTDI cable is to set the RTS on close like this below :
I suggest you to dowload the latest version of the ArduFGControl v1.1 : here
with the updated version of ArduFlight v2.4.7 : here
In the latest version of the Arduflight v2.4.7, I have set the uplink rate to every 100 ms. This give a very smooth flight. See the FGSim tab :
void print_data_emulator(void) // Output Datalink for the Flight Gear gateway
{
static unsigned long timer3=0;
static byte counter;
if(millis()-timer3 > 100) // Output Rate for FGS set to every 100 ms
{
digitalWrite(13,HIGH);
Serial.print("!!!");
.....
I have now tested the AduFGControl with Windows 7 and it work very well, my setup is :
Intel(R) Core(TM)2 Duo CPU P7450 @2.13 GHz 2.13 GHz
Performance indice = 5.6
Good virtual flights with the ArduPilot,
Regards,
Jean-Louis
Windows 7 is now ordered... backup in progress....
I tried several changes to Rascal110.h to modify roll, pitch, throttle & heading gains , I program Arduino-16 with MacBookPro @2.4ghz 2gb RAM, OS-x 10.5.8, so I move FTDI USB connector to Mac then to PC to run new gain changes. When I connect to PC, FTDI won't connect, (no flashing LEDs) I reset power to ArduPilot or re-plug USB, and press Reload on AFControl, This works sometimes. Once comms are established all is good, just no reliable startup... All suggestion are welcom.. and now PC won't startup.. blank screen...
In the latest update of the 2.4.7, I have added the NextWP Uplink command which ask the Ardupilot to go to Next Wp.
From the Gateway to the ArduPilot :
&&&LAT:3762895,LON:-12239454,ALT:285,ASP:31,GSP:31,PHI:-16.511066,THE:-1.549248,GCS:263,MOD:4+++
Here somme commands that can be now send to the ArduPilot :
MOD:0 = Manual Mode
MOD:2 = Wp mode
MOD:3 = RTH
MOD:4 = go to Next WP
(MOD:1 and MOD:5 are under tests).
See the "system.pde"
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