[HOW TO]Navio+ and RPI2, Create the ultimate 4G Drone.

Sinamics

UPDATE 26.11.2019
This blog is depreciated!

UAVcast-Pro has been released. All you need to fly 4G / LTE

**UPDATED 08.02.2016 **
New complete script package available, ready for implementation. Read here for further information.

**UPDATED 13.05.2015 **
Added autoconnection of LTE if loss of signal. See section 3.1

I would like to share the ultimate **RPAS Drone ** setup i ever has experienced / tested. One word, Awesome! In my previous blog article i was explaining usage of Pixhawk in collaboration with RPI for 4G video and telemetry transfer, this requires three separate units ( Pixhawk , TTL to ETH adapter, RPI), the more the worse.

Using RPI2 with Navio+ keeps everything you need in one peace, and at least much more cleaner. I have flown approx 6hrs in total and I`m getting more and more confident with this configuration. I think a 4G telemetry system like this would be much more convenient to use than other regular radios (e.g 433 MHz and so on ).

This article will explain how to configure your RPI2 with the great navigation board from Emlid.com and the usage of 4g cellular network for real time RPAS.

NOTE , All info and usage from this blog is at your own risk. Everything is experimental!

Equipment used:

Navio+ Emlid.com
RPI2
Logitech C920 Web camera
Logitech F710 Gamepad
4G USB dongle
4G modem router ( Ground Control station )
5v 5A Bec

I would first like to thank all of the staff over at Emlid.com for this great navigation board Navio+ and especially the great support and documentation given at theirs site. Check it out .

image 1006775454557d540272b0e943783303.png

**Image Installation **
Install PREEMPT_RT image into RPI2.
Use program such as Image Writer to install image to MicroSd card.
Connect RPI2 using SSH. ( e.g putty, Bitvise Tunnelier or any ssh program you want)
We need to update our source list with the following command.

sudo apt-get update

**Basic RPI2 Settings **

Run raspi-config
Set your desired user settings such as language etc. -
You could try to set overclocking to Pi2 1000MHz, this will increase gStreamer quality drastically, but unfortunately someone (including myself) has some issues running Pi2 overclock with APM software. Guys at Emlid.com are working to get this solved. **Use None/700Mhz to be safe. **

**!Note **: See THIS thread at Emlid.com if any issues like “AK8963: bad DEVICE ID” when overclocking.

image 805010726557d54101d423484531684.png

RPI power source

We need to attach more power to the RPI2 USB, using a 5v 5A BEC. This will supply our 4G modem with enough power.
All onboard equipment are powered from the same battery source.

image 189950876557d541b17d43416566739.jpeg

**gStreamer-1.0 Installation **
I recently manage to compile gstreamer v1.4. See main discussion thread Here
Version 1.4 are not required for this tutorial, so we just use v1.0 for the sake of convenience.

Type this line to install gstreamer1.0

 sudo apt-get install gstreamer1.0

Save attached(in bottom of this article) **gstreamer.sh ** file to RPI or copy paste content bellow.
NOTE! Change the IP to match your GCS ip or dyndns. You may also try with different framerate and bitrate.
Try to find a setting you are satisfied with.

#!/bin/bash 
#320x240 
#360x288 
#640x480 
#704x576   

WIDTH=640 
HEIGHT=480 
ip=GCS_IP
   
v4l2-ctl --set-fmt-video=width=$WIDTH,height=$HEIGHT,pixelformat=1 
v4l2-ctl -i 1 

gst-launch-1.0 -v \     rtpbin name=rtpbin v4l2src device=/dev/video0 \    
 ! video/x-raw,width=$WIDTH,height=$HEIGHT,framerate=15/1 \    
 ! queue \    
 ! omxh264enc target-bitrate=500000 control-rate=1 \     
 ! "video/x-h264,profile=high" \     
 ! h264parse \     
 ! queue max-size-bytes=10000000 \     
 ! rtph264pay pt=96 config-interval=1 \     
 ! rtpbin.send_rtp_sink_0 rtpbin.send_rtp_src_0 \     
 ! udpsink port=5000 host=$ip ts-offset=0 name=vrtpsink rtpbin.send_rtcp_src_0 \    
 ! udpsink port=5001 host=$ip sync=false async=false name=vrtcpsink udpsrc port=5000 name=vrtpsrc \    
 ! rtpbin.recv_rtcp_sink_0

Remember to set permission to file,

chmod 755 gstreamer.sh

To run gstreamer script, type this;

sudo sh gstreamer.sh

**Client. Windows or unix. **

Get the gstreamer installation package for windows here
Install the package and then navigate to the installation bin directory. e.g gstreamer\1.0\x86\bin
Then open windows command prompt in that directory. left shift + right click. "Open command line here".

Then type this syntax to start gstreamer to listen for any video stream at port 5000.
If your RPI are streaming, you should get a picture right away.

gst-launch-1.0.exe -e -v udpsrc port=5000 ! application/x-rtp, payload=96 ! 
rtpjitterbuffer ! rtph264depay ! avdec_h264 ! fpsdisplaysink sync=false text-overlay=false

image 1267654662554e364d822ef762956776.jpeg

VLC If you dont have the VLC installed, you can get it here
Save the attached(In the Bottom of this article) vlc.sdp and run it.

image 124182670954df8a14b2861822490726.png

**UQMI 4G integration **
UQMI (Supports 4G LTE) Read discussion thread here
Tested and working on RPI 2.

Install required dependencies:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get upgrade
sudo apt-get install usb-modeswitch
sudo apt-get install cmake
sudo apt-get install dh-autoreconf
sudo apt-get install dnsutils

DIR /home/pi

*** installing json-c ***

wget  https://s3.amazonaws.com/json-c_releases/releases/json-c-0.12.tar.gz
sudo tar -xvf json-c-0.12.tar.gz
cd json-c-0.12
sed -i s/-Werror// Makefile.in   && ./configure --prefix=/usr --disable-static  && make -j1
su
make install
cd ..

*** Installing libubox ****

git clone https://github.com/UAVmatrix/libubox.git libubox
cd libubox
cmake CMakeLists.txt -DBUILD_LUA=OFF
make
sudo make install
mkdir -p /usr/include/libubox
cp *.h /usr/include/libubox
cp libubox.so /usr/lib
cp libblobmsg_json.so /usr/lib
ldconfig

Then git, compile and install **uqmi **

cd /home/pi
sudo git clone git://nbd.name/uqmi.git
cd uqmi
sudo cmake CMakeLists.txt
sudo make install

3.1 Autoconnection of LTE if loss of signal. ( UPDATE 13.05.2015 )

This section will explain autoconnection of LTE 4G if loss of signal. We need to create crontab job that checks every 15sec if RPI is online, and if not reconnect. We also needs to change the way APM streams UDP packets. Normally we just type UDP:GCS_IP:port, but this wont work after wwan0 ( LTE USB Modem) is re-iniziated. we need to stream our packets to localhost and then use udp_redirect script to forward packets to GCS.

First we are going to create "checkifonline" script.

sudo vi checkifonline.sh

Then copy and paste code bellow.
This script will check if our RPI is online and if not, re-connect our LTE modem
Change the green fields to match your setting.

#!/bin/bash
#Create lock file
LOCKFILE=/tmp/lock.txt
if [ -e ${LOCKFILE} ] && kill -0 `cat ${LOCKFILE}`; then
    echo "This script is already running"
    exit
fi
 
# make sure the lockfile is removed when we exit and then claim it
trap "rm -f ${LOCKFILE}; exit" INT TERM EXIT
echo $$ > ${LOCKFILE}
#let`s ping google.
if ! wget -q --tries=10 --timeout=20 --spider http://google.com
    then
            sleep 1
            #let`s ping google again to doublecheck that RPI is offline.
            if ! wget -q --tries=10 --timeout=20 --spider http://google.com
             then
                    sudo killall -9 uqmi
                    sudo killall -9 dhclient
                    sudo uqmi -d /dev/cdc-wdm0 --set-device-operating-mode shutting_down
                    sleep 30
                    sudo uqmi -d /dev/cdc-wdm0 --stop-network 4294967295 --autoconnect
                    sleep 2
                    sudo uqmi -d /dev/cdc-wdm0 --network-register
                    sleep 2
                    sudo uqmi -s -d /dev/cdc-wdm0 --start-network YOUR_APN --keep-client-id wds --autoconnect &
                    echo "Restartet Modem"				       	
                    sleep 8
                    sudo dhclient -v wwan0
                    sleep 5
                else
                        echo "RPI Online"
                fi
    else
        echo "RPI Online"
    fi
 
#remove LockFile
rm -f ${LOCKFILE}

Remember to set permission

sudo chmod 755 checkifonline.sh

Let`s add this script to crontab

sudo crontab -e

add these line to the bottom of the file

* * * * * /home/pi/./checkifonline.sh & 
* * * * * sleep 15; /home/pi/./checkifonline.sh & 
* * * * * sleep 30; /home/pi/./checkifonline.sh & 
* * * * * sleep 45; /home/pi/./checkifonline.sh &

This will run our checkifonline script every 15sec.
Next we need to create udp_redirect program.
Make another script

sudo vi udp_redirect.c

Copy paste the code bellow.

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <sys/socket.h>
#include <netinet/in.h>
 
int main(int argc, char *argv[]) {
    if (argc!=3 && argc!=5) {
        printf("Usage: %s our-ip our-port send-to-ip send-to-port\n",argv[0]);
        printf("Usage: %s our-ip our-port             # echo mode\n",argv[0]);
        exit(1);
    }
 
    int os=socket(PF_INET,SOCK_DGRAM,IPPROTO_IP);
 
    struct sockaddr_in a;
    a.sin_family=AF_INET;
    a.sin_addr.s_addr=inet_addr(argv[1]); a.sin_port=htons(atoi(argv[2]));
    if(bind(os,(struct sockaddr *)&a,sizeof(a)) == -1) {
        printf("Can't bind our address (%s:%s)\n", argv[1], argv[2]);
        exit(1); }
 
    if(argc==5) { a.sin_addr.s_addr=inet_addr(argv[3]); a.sin_port=htons(atoi(argv[4])); }
 
    struct sockaddr_in sa;
    struct sockaddr_in da; da.sin_addr.s_addr=0;
    while(1) {
        char buf[65535];
        int sn=sizeof(sa);
        int n=recvfrom(os,buf,sizeof(buf),0,(struct sockaddr *)&sa,&sn);
        if(n<=0) continue;
 
        if(argc==3) { sendto(os,buf,n,0,(struct sockaddr *)&sa,sn);
        } else if(sa.sin_addr.s_addr==a.sin_addr.s_addr && sa.sin_port==a.sin_port) {
            if(da.sin_addr.s_addr) sendto(os,buf,n,0,(struct sockaddr *)&da,sizeof(da));
        } else {
            sendto(os,buf,n,0,(struct sockaddr *)&a,sizeof(a));
            da=sa;
        }
    }
}

Set permission to file

sudo chmod 755 udp_redirect.c

Then we compile the file we just created.

sudo gcc -o udp_redirect udp_redirect.c

Now you should have a file named udp_redirect in /home/pi
Finally we are going to make udp-send.sh script. This scripft will find GCS ip address and forward UDP trafic from 127.0.0.1( localhost) to your GCS.

sudo vi udp-send.sh

Copy paste the code bellow

#!/bin/bash 
ip=`dig +short YOUR_GCS_DNS` 
echo $ip /home/pi/udp_redirect 0.0.0.0 14550 $ip 14550 &

**Note! ** - Remeber to change the APM start line in ArduPilot.sh as described in earlier.
From:

sudo ArduPlane -A udp:$ip:14550

sudo ArduPlane -A udp:127.0.0.1:14550

APM installation.

All documentation is provided at Emlid.com , i would recommend to see theirs instructions. After successfully installed APM, make another script which just fires ArduPilot software.
sudo vi Ardupilot.sh

Copy paste code bellow. Change code to mach you airframe and port !NOTE, If you are going to use Autoconnect features as described in section 3.1, you need to change the APM start line to
sudo ArduPlane -A udp:127.0.0.1:14550

#!/bin/bash
ip=`dig +short YOUR_DynDns_ADRESS`
sudo ArduPlane -A udp:$ip:14550

Set permission to file

sudo chmod 755 ArduPilot.sh

Now test that ArduPilot is working properly.

sudo sh ArduPilot.sh

RPI startup and usage of installed code.

Now you should have two files located in /home/pi ( gstreamer.sh, ArduPilot.sh)
I have made a startup script which calls all the necessary programs in correct order.
( Also see attched runCode.sh in the bottom)

sudo vi runCode.sh

Copy paste code bellow. Change the yellow fields to mach yours. You will need to contact your operator to get correct APN name.
Telenor, Norway using; internet.public

#!/bin/bash
function CheckOnline {
SERVICE='uqmi'
if ps ax | grep -v grep | grep $SERVICE > /dev/null
then
echo "$SERVICE service running, everything is fine"
wget -q --tries=10 --timeout=20 --spider http://google.com
if [[ $? -eq 0 ]]; then
   echo "Online, starting APM"
   ArduPilot
   sleep 1
else
  echo "4G Offline"
fi
 
else
    echo "$SERVICE is not running"
    echo "Check if RPI is online anyway"
wget -q --tries=10 --timeout=20 --spider http://google.com
  if [[ $? -eq 0 ]]; then
    echo "RPI is Online, starting APM"
    ArduPilot
    sleep 1
  else
    echo "RPI Offline"
    uqmi
  fi
fi
}
function gstreamer {
pidof gst-launch-1.0 >/dev/null
if [[ $? -ne 0 ]] ; then
  sudo sh /home/pi/gstreamer.sh &
  sleep 5
  pidof gst-launch-1.0 >/dev/null
   if [[ $? -eq 0 ]] ; then
     echo "gStremer Started"
   else
   echo 'Could`t start gStreamer'
   fi
else
echo "gStremer already running"
fi
}
function uqmi {
sudo uqmi -d /dev/cdc-wdm0 --stop-network 4294967295 --autoconnect
sleep 2
    if ! sudo uqmi -s -d /dev/cdc-wdm0 --get-data-status | grep '"connected"' > /dev/null; then
sudo uqmi -d /dev/cdc-wdm0 --stop-network 4294967295 --autoconnect
sleep 2
sudo uqmi -d /dev/cdc-wdm0 --network-register
echo network register
sleep 3
echo Connecting 4G
sudo uqmi -s -d /dev/cdc-wdm0 --start-network YOUR_APN_NAME --keep-client-id wds --autoconnect &
sleep 15
     if ! sudo uqmi -s -d /dev/cdc-wdm0 --get-data-status | grep '"connected"' > /dev/null; then
   echo "Not Connected!"
     else
   echo "Connected"
   sudo dhclient -v wwan0
   sleep 3
   CheckOnline
     fi
     else
  echo "Already connected to internet."
  echo "Check if gStreamer or APM is running, if not we start them."
  CheckOnline
      fi
}
function ArduPilot {
pidof ArduPlane >/dev/null
if [[ $? -ne 0 ]] ; then
  nohup sudo sh /home/pi/ArduPilot.sh > /dev/null 2>&1 &
  sleep 5
  pidof ArduPlane >/dev/null
   if [[ $? -eq 0 ]] ; then
   echo "APM started"
   gstreamer
   else
   echo 'could`t start ArduPilot'
   fi
else
  echo "APM already running"
  echo "Starting gStreamer"
  gstreamer
fi
}
sleep 25
CheckOnline

Set Permission

chmod 755 runCode.sh

This script is not the most glorious one ( made in a hurry) but it should give you an idea on how to set everything up.
You are free to make a more robust version with further functionalities.

**Add runCode.sh to run a startup **
we need to add runCode.sh to /etc/rc.local

sudo vi /etc/rc.local

add this line to the bottom before exit 0

sudo /home/pi/./runCode.sh &

Reboot RPI and verify that 4G, APM code, gStreamer is running. At this stage you should be able to connect 4G cellular network and stream telemetry from Navio to Mission planner and simultaneously have video stream provided by gstreamer to your GCS.

Now you can connect your gamepad and select Joystick tab in mission planner. Set desired function to each of the buttons and joysticks. This is how i have configured my Gamepad.

image 1055403288554e3de09973b373569084.png

**Failsafe **

Few thing to remember before flight. My failsafe function is set as bellow;

GCS failsafe in Mission planner.
When flying while using telemetry on the GCS, the autopilot can be programmed to trigger into failsafe mode if it loses telemetry. In the event that the autopilot stops receiving MAVlink (telemetry protocol) heartbeat messages for more than 20 sec, the GCS failsafe (FS_GCS_ENABL, 0=Disabled, 1=Enabled) will trigger the autopilot to go into long failsafe and change the flight mode to RTL

Set Long failsafe in mission planner.
The action to take on a long (20 second) failsafe event in AUTO, GUIDED or LOITER modes. A long failsafe event in stabilization modes will always cause an RTL (ReturnToLaunch). In AUTO modes you can choose whether it will RTL or continue with the mission. If FS_LONG_ACTN is 0 then it will continue with the mission, if it is 1 then it will enter RTL mode. Note that if FS_SHORT_ACTN is 1, then the aircraft will enter CIRCLE mode after 1.5 seconds of failsafe, and will always enter RTL after 20 seconds of failsafe, regardless of the FS_LONG_ACTN setting.

Read all about failsafe from Ardupilot

https://youtu.be/5f0Kz7wUwzA
https://youtu.be/EBhvOVh2hNA
https://youtu.be/qY4sAh3ZrGE

image 1327248673554e741f0d3c3648975750.jpeg

15-28-130-vlc.zip

370B

15-28-130-gstreamer.zip

519B

15-28-130-runcode.zip

907B

**Happy and SAFE Flying! **

Sinamics

Hi cesar
I had to merge some of the old posts as they are depreciated and not up to date.
But you can find much information here Sinamics

cesar if a cell is not used

If i understand you correct, you want to use another modem instead of the USB type?
You can connect Raspberry to a WIFI hotspot if you want. As long as RPI is online you are good to go. ☺

//Bernt Chr

pjfa

Hi!
We are also using NAVIO+ on Raspberry Pi2 and a Logitech C920 .
We have had problems with corrupted USB video that we didnt know the reason until we stumbled upon this post where we found other users with the same video corruption problem.

In the post it was suggested that the FIQ drivers corrected the problem, and indeed it worked. The problem is that now NAVIO+ cannot stay online much more than a few seconds, hard crashing.

I took a look at /var/log/syslog and found that the stack trace went trhough scheduling code paths, which seems to indicate it is a RT kernel problem. This problem is a showstopper for our application.
Do you have any suggestions to enable FIQ or to stop the video corruption?

Have you experienced this problem?
p.s. We are not using (yet) that 5V external supply on RPi USB and we using h.264 directly from C920.

Best regards
Pedro Alves

Sinamics

Hi
Could you explain Corrupted Video?
was the video quality totally crap or just blurry? I never had to update FIQ driver , but what i learned is without extra power supply gStreamer will crash after running for 5 sec. Good power source is important.
It would be nice if you could show us the diffrent before and after FIQ update.

pjfa

Hi again,
We have made this video in order to demonstrate our setup's behaviour:

https://youtu.be/PHbLZJ2IzsY

It would be nice if you could show us the diffrent before and after FIQ update.
With FIQ enabled the RPi imediatelly crashes when the Ardupilot starts.

Our gstreamer code

gst-launch-1.0 v4l2src device=/dev/video0 ! video/x-h264,width=1920,height=1080,framerate=30/1 ! 
h264parse ! rtph264pay ! udpsink host=10.42.0.1 port=6000

RPi2 + Logitech C920 Camera video corruption

RPi2 + Logitech C920 Camera video corruption
Read more...

Sinamics

Thx
I will try your pipeline tonight and see if i can reproduce same behavior.

Sinamics

Hi
I did get the same crappy picture using your pipeline. and if i enable FIQ the problem goes away but RPI crashes when start APM. identically same as you.

I recently discovered that when overclocking RPI2 with 1000Mhz the video quality gets allot better with higher resolutions, but unfortunately APM won’t run in overclock mode either. So i decided to try PiCam at last and the quality is actually little better than C920, Picture is nice without any mosaics.

But the PiCam is generating to much noise, kicks out my GPS signal so im again back to square one. I also tried to shield picam and cable, but i still have problems. http://community.emlid.com/t/bad-gps-health/455

Hopefully Emlid or anyone will come up with a working solution in this matter, either get the overclocking to work with APM or in this case, make the APM work with FIQ enabled.
I think i will have to go with the lower resolutions, it works but its annoying to know that the bottleneck is software related and not (in my case) cellular network.
Thx for sharing this usefull information and please keep us updated if you get arround this issue.

Raspberry Pi Camera and Bad GPS Health

Hi all. Today when i was flying i got Bad GPS Health. I do see from the log that SatCount is fluctuating from 13 -> 0. I’m using Navio original GPS, and RPI2. with standard settings, (not overclocked) It seems to be worse after takeoff, and my first thoughts is interference from motor, but GPS is far away from any motor cabling.?? This flight was the first time i ever tested the PiCam instead of Logitech C920, would that make any diffrence? Is there any check i should do? or any advice i...
Read more...

Noah

Hi Sinamics, I have a question,
how fast should the internet connection be for both the recieving and transmitting ends of the setup in regards to ping times and upload/download speeds. The 4g/3g connection in my area is more than fast enough for the drone, but my concern is my home link, which is terribly slow.

Home Connection (Ground station link - ADSL 2+)

image 16203984445584f858d73a8292112663.png

4G Connection (Drone link)

image 699110865584f95adf5b0806540400.png

Will these speeds be fast enough? Especially my home link?
Also where I live, the 4g connection covers most of the area, but there are spots inwhich my phone has to switch back to 3g for internet. Will this be a problem for the drone link?

Does it just switch between connections automatically?

Thanks Loads
Noah

Sinamics

Hi
First some math
We need to convert Mb(Megabit) into a more convenient and known datatype e.g MB(MegaByte)

There are 8bit in one Byte so let’s calculate those numbers.

Your local broadband gives you 2.05Mbit/s download speed, in other words 2.05 / 8 = 0.256MB/s or 256kb/s 0.256MB/s will be the max download speed in megabytes.

And for the 3G dongle we need to know the upload speed, aircraft will Upload telemetry and video 17.29 / 8 = 2.16MB/s
If you stream video and telemetry you will end up using approx 250kb/s every sec. That equals 180MB/s for 15min flight. These numbers are just estimated based on my experience and will change based on gstreamer settings such as bitrate, resolution, framerate.

If you consider to use only Telemetry and not video, this will be more than enough. Telemetry only needs a few kb/s. So for your home connection with 256kb/s this will be on the limit (for video and telemetry), i think you will get trouble with the video quality.

You could however fiddle with a lower bitrate,framerate and make it work. Your 3G dongle speed is more than enough. 3G dongle will switch automatically between networks or towers, or at least my dongle does. I am not familiar with other countries tower and networks configuration but i guess it will be the same.

I hope this will answer your questions...

Sinamics

mocart Is there any way to turn off WI-FI on RPI for a while and make it available again e.g after reboot?

You can probably use something like sudo ifconfig wlan0 down
But i dont know or remember if it will be enabled during reboot again.

mocart how to run UAV casting scripts during RPI booting proccess ?
and last one related my yesterdays tests

You did try sudo systemctl enable UAVcast ? Also perform a hard reboot . Power Off/on just to ensure that USB modem gets rebooted.

mocart It look like I need to have 250MB per one flight ( it my average flying time with current frame ). Did you test how to reduce this value e.g up to 150MB per 20 minutes ???

Have a look at this post Sinamics You could set lower resolution, bitrate, FPS in DroneConfig to reduce the total MB transferred.

#gStreamer Settings.
WIDTH="1280"
HEIGHT="720"
UDP_PORT="5000"
BITRATE="1500000"
FPS="20"

Noah

Cheers
Thanks

Derek_Arsenault

Maybe a crazy idea but why not just share the img file so we can flash our pi with exactly same setup instead of going through all steps with potential for errors?

Sinamics

Hi Derek.
It would be possible to clone my RPI, but the problem is that my environment is not equal to yours. A while ago i started to write a script that will install all necessary programs and script automatically.
All you need to do is editing one configuration file for which software and equipment you using.

I will try to free up some time to get this ready soon.

Derek_Arsenault

Thanks Bernt, that would be pretty cool! I know that it's hard to find free time so I completely understand (have couple of kids who like to keep me very busy!). Little by little I power up the RPI when I can sneak away and make a little progress each time.

The gstreamer install seems to take quite a while but it's running right now and seems to be installing correctly... FYI had to use...

sudo apt -  get  install gstreamer1.0

This doesn't work for me....

sudo apt -  get  gstreamer1.0

Derek

Sinamics

Hi Derek
I recognize myself in what you say. I wish i had more time..
Thx for the typo notice. I updated the blog with correct syntax.

Derek_Arsenault

Got gstreamer working tonight with a Microsoft LifeCam Cinema HD (720p) Part# H5D-00018, Model No. 1393
I played around with bitrate and got it a little better but it's quite choppy video with some noticeable lag. If the camera doesn't move the video is very clear so I'm going to have to make sure it's stabilized well.

I guess I could live with a little bit of lag but the thing is if the video is shaky then the entire video becomes blurry. I'm expecting the worst once I mount this to the quad.

I did not intend to be installing a gimbal. Have you noticed the same issues?
I'm almost thinking it would be easier to just mount a Nexus 5 (I have one collecting dust) and have the handset do all the video feed stuff instead of messing around trying to work it over Linux + gstreamer....I think I might just do that.

Sinamics

Derek.
Have you tried overcloking your RPI to 1000Mhz? This will improve streaming quality. However, you need to watch out for the AK8963: bad DEVICE ID if overcloking.

See this link .

[SOLVED] "AK8963: bad DEVICE ID" error during Ardupilot start

During each start of Ardupilot I'm keep getting "AK8963: bad DEVICE ID" error. I've tried AccelGyroMag, but it shows only this: Acc: +0.000 +0.000 +0.000 Gyr: +0.000 +0.000 +0.000 Mag: +0.000 +0.000 +0.000 Acc: +0.000 +0.000 +0.000 Gyr: +0.000 +0.000 +0.000 Mag: +0.000 +0.000 +0.000 Acc: +0.000 +0.000 +0.000 Gyr: +0.000 +0.000 +0.000 Mag: +0.000 +0.000 +0.000 Acc: +0.000 +0.000 +0.000 Gyr: +0.000 +0.000 +0.000 Mag: +0.000 +0.000 +0.000 Acc: +0.000 +0.000 +0.000 Gyr: +0.000 +0.000 +0.000 Mag: +...
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Derek_Arsenault

I have not tried overclocking yet...
I am now trying with a direct modem connection to see if that helps with latency at all. Call me stubborn but I think it should be much better without converting LTE to Wifi Hotspot.
so I am having no choice as I am unable to SSH into the RPI from an external network (Internet) since I was providing the Wifi hotspot with a Nexus 5 and I think the carrier blocks SSH passthrough over the cellular network...what a real pain :-(

One question about extra power for USB, which pins exactly ?
I just want to be double sure I don't fry my board with a BEC supply....

Derek_Arsenault

One more thing,
Looking at a product like 4Gmetry...have you tried that?
Looks interesting and much easier if it actually works...

Sinamics

Hi
See this image of my current RPI with Navio+.

image 20170314-185131.jpeg

I haven`t tried 4Gmetry yet, but i will do soon.
Please keep us informed on the way, if you are going to buy 4Gmetry .

Sinamics

Due to many of my articles are outdated, I will just make a build list for those who want to build a cell controlled Drone in shortest time. I will try to keep it clean and informative.

Vehicle

**RPI ** 0/1/2/3/4 with UAVcast-Pro Sinamics
**Extra Power ** source for RPI. I’m using 5A 5V Bec. Sinamics
**USB camera **. Preferably PiCam
**USB cell modem **. See UAVcast supported modems Huawei E3372H has worked perfectly for many people.

Ground Control

Laptop or Android device tested by mocart for capturing video and telemetry
USB Gamepad as controller. See the layout Sinamics
**USB modem ** (Video and telemetry port to be opened. Default 14550 and 5000)

Tools

**Port checker **. ~~Verifiy that your port is open Sinamics~~ Now Inlcuded in **UAVcast **
Mission Planner
QGroundControl

This is based on my experince though, i encourage you to comment and suggest changes to the current list. My intensjon is to keep the first post fluid and updated with the most recent knowledge.

I will update more later, its a start at least. 🚀

Members Showcase

vibmad 5.5 kms total, max dist from home 1.8 km

robertb

Bernt
first of all, congratulations amazing Project.
Please, I have everything working with PICamera, but the noise is really big. So I bought a C920 camera, I know the quality is a little Worse.
Did you install any driver? Because after change to C920 stops to work.

Sinamics

Hi Robert.
You dont need any driver. Could you elaborate "stops working" ? You might want to try with a external power supply connected to RPI USB hub. Make sure you got Video0 in /dev/ when connecting C920