Questions

Jman841

First off, thank you very much for your hard work on this system. It is quite brilliant and looks to be the exact solution I have been looking for.

I am currently working on developing a quadcopter and a fixed wing UAV, both operating with the Pixhawk, but have a requirement of being able to stream video through the 4g network and the mission planner telemetry.

I have a lot to learn still to implement your solution but it seems quite perfect!

A few questions...

Have you completely removed the Tx/Rx solution from the pixhawk? I see you use a gaming controller to control the servo's on your plane. How did you implement that through the PC to act as the tx as well?

How reliable has this system been for you? And, are the pixhawk failsafes still in play that if this system goes down for some reason it will still execture a RTL or whatever is programmed as the failsafe within the mission planner?

Thank you and I am sure I will have tons more questions as I explore this solution!

Jason

Sinamics

Hi Jman and welcome.

You are definitely on the right place.. 😉

Have you completely removed the Tx/Rx solution from the pixhawk? I see you use a gaming controller to control the servo's on your plane. How did you implement that through the PC to act as the tx as well?

I have not removed the 2,4Ghz tx/rx completely. I’m using that for takeoff and landing. Its not required though, you can actually do everything with the game controller.

The game controller is connected to my computer which again talks with the aircraft by 3g/4g cellular network.
All commands are sent through internet.

How reliable has this system been for you? And, are the pixhawk failsafes still in play that if this system goes down for some reason it will still execture a RTL or whatever is programmed as the failsafe within the mission planner?

Its very stable. ( it all depends on your cell signal strength). All failsafe function is maintained. If your computer( Ground control station) loose contact with the aircraft, it will return to launch. We also have a RPI script running and checks if rpi is online, of not it will reconnect automatically.

I will publish a howto this weekend(hopefully) which will explain the installation progress in details.

Jman841

Also,

How do you patch in the gimbal for the camera?
What gimbals will work with this setup, or, will any 2 or 3axis gimbal work?

Thank you!

Jman841

Excellent, thank you again! Much appreciated!

Sinamics

Also,
How do you patch in the gimbal for the camera?
What gimbals will work with this setup, or, will any 2 or 3axis gimbal work?
Thank you!

I think you could use almost every gimbal availible.
Just hook it up with pixhawk and then map the signal from whatever button or joystick on your USB game pad.
On my game pad controller i used left joystick for gimbal and rigth joystick for flying. Buttons for choose of modes. Really neat.

Jman841

That is awesome!
I am very excited to try this out!

Chuckster1

Jman841
copter.ardupilot.com/wiki/optional-additions/flying-with-a-joystickgamepad-instead-of-rc-controller/