A few months ago, I started a project for an integrated groundstation. The idea was to combine Arduino, MAVLink, FrSky and a good TX system (Sky9x board) into an integrated system to control any kind of UxV. After making good progress, the project stalled because I'm waiting for documentation and samples from FrSky and after the FrSky Taranis and the Turnigy 9XR came out, both the Sky9X and the gruvin9x boards were discontinued.
Then came school for me and lots of stuff...
Recently I started hacking the external mode switch panel which I just posted about. After reading the comments and feedback on that, I started thinking again and decided to go back to the groundstation project. As I am now a little bit more clever - I know how to generate a PPM stream, which always was the biggest obstacle for me - I decided to start making everything - a real integrated system, based on an Arduino Mega.
Why Arduino? Well, I want the system to be easily hackable. The whole system will be easy to DIY. I will refrain from using special PCBs as much as possible. And of course, everything will be open source.
For the special "cool touch", I am also designing avionics-style panels. I even found a company in Spain which is interested in that project and will make those panels for a good price.
But of course, the most important part is functionality. Here are a few initial points.
- Modular - as much as possible stuff will be put into modules to easily select what we want
- Basic control goes via RC TX (JR style modules), simply because there's lots of robust solutions on the market - solutions which also have communication authority approvals!
- No bells and whistles in the RC part. No expos, wild mixes, etc. The sticks are to tell the APM what to do and the APM does the stuff. There will be a very small number of RC functions, like a switch to put the elevator a few degrees up for hand-launch and similar
- No touchscreens, no colorful LCDs, etc.! Why? Because those stuff is either not sunlight-readable or idiotically expensive. We will have some modules with 1 or 2 line STN displays, but that's it.
- Panel will be designed close to avionics standards. The main goal is to keep it intuitive and to help people keep the overview. I might even adapt some mechanical (simulator) gauges or create some myself.
This being said, I kick the ball in the community's corner. What do YOU think would be a useful function / a useful module for the perfect UAS-TX? Please comment, but keep it realistic!
Comments
I was thinking of opening a project at GitHub, to start collecting ideas and definitions in the bugtracker... What do you think?
Robert, there's a number of Arduino-based TX-solutions out there.I found those which are very interesting:
Normal version
USB joystick version
I'm yet defining the functionality. I do that by designing panels :D - I know, I have a bit strange way sometimes.Anyways, I'm not sure about the sticks yet. I am sure that I don't want normal RC gimbals. I was thinking of either industrial 3-function joysticks with a button or make a USB version. Or just make that modular too - put the joystick-stuff into a separate HW module which simply communicates with the core unit via I²C/SPI or something like that. I think, that's the most important thing - define a core module and a way to communicate with the modules
About the smaller, simpler version - don't laugh but now as I have learned how to create a PPM stream, I wanted to make a micro-TX. I have an arm-mounted enclosure flying around and was thinking to make a supersimple TX out of 6 or 7 pushbuttons and 2 PS2 joysticks :). Still also have a FrSky DIY-module in my parts box.
Stefan, I think this is a good idea, I built something very similar to what you are proposing already. I built mine into a Pelican case, but I have also thought about making a smaller, simpler version which would simply install all the components into a G-10 frame/sandwich.
I've got the basic code working, and flying, including the 6-button mode selection. It generates the PPM stream and outputs it to an FrSky Tx module. It has model memory, timers and some other stuff. I would like to expand the functionality to include FrSky telemetry and/or MAVlink telemetry. I'm using a 4x20 line STN display for the same reason you are: it's tough to beat the functionality in sunlight for a reasonable price.
If you'd like to combine efforts, I'm open to it.
BTW, I do think that some expo is still helpful on roll, pitch and yaw. I haven't actually added the feature, but want to. Flying without it, it's a bit less smooth.
make it rugged! for field use! really good idea to have the avionics style panels! you have my support if you need!
Sounds cool.
Earl
Neither. German.
Nice project. Are you Belgian or Dutch?
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