UAVcast. Software for Companion Computer based UAV`s

rma153

And now, my gstreamer video is working and streaming into the standalone HUD in Mission planner along with telemetry, all traffic over 4g using my Sprint 341U 4G modem (in the U.S.) with a static IP. Next I'll add a 4G USB modem to my ground station laptop. UAVcast works perfectly for me. The Wvdial option works for me.

Thank you for your Masterful work of Art and Science Bernt

Sinamics

That`s great news Rob. Well done.
Did you have to change any wvdial settings to make it work?

Looking forward to the maden flight movie. yes

rma153

After loading the linux drivers on my 341U modem, no changes were needed in wvdial. The only tricky parts for me were in figuring out the etc/network/interfaces and dhcpcd.config files. Then the port forwarding in my home router (wireshark on my Pi and pc helped) took some time to figure out. Had some issues with voltage but started using the 5.25v ac adapter and problems went away.

mtp9388

Hi Bernt,

Sorry to hassle you again.

Would it be possible to get UAVcast working by making the onboard Raspberry PI a wifi access point that the ground station (smart phone, laptop or tablet) directly connects to? No internet required, just a direct wifi connection like this:

https://pixhawk.org/peripherals/onboard_computers/access_point

Sinamics

Hi Bernt, Sorry to hassle you again. Would it be possible to get UAVcast working by making the onboard Raspberry PI a wifi access point that the ground station (smart phone, laptop or tablet) directly connects to? No internet required, just a direct wifi connection like this: https://pixhawk.org/peripherals/onboard_computers/access_point

This is quite interesting. Sure it will be possible to add this option to UAVcast. Let me do some read up / testing and i will get back to you. It would be nice to have such feature in terms of ground testing or before flight test.

mtp9388

Great, thank you. I was hoping to use this for short range flights as an alternative to using my mobile data for streaming HD video and telemetry - opting for a 5GHz link between tablet and onboard RPI.

Sinamics

Awesome. I will look into this as soon as possible.

Sinamics

Mark.

I have placed an order for a new RPI 3 and Edimax EW-7711USN.

I will add this feature as soon as i get the parts.

tdyne

Hi Bernt,
I am trying to set up UAVcast on my RaspberryPI 3 and Navio2 board. However when I try to edit DroneConfig.cfg (sudo nano DroneConfig.cfg) something strange happens:

The text I try to edit gets copied from the line above with me only using right arrow to navigate.

image 190868940758768a87596c3849182963.png

Chuckster1

Hi tdyne, and welcome to UAVMatrix . I have not experienced this problem, but my keyboard does not work perfectly with the Raspberry pi. Some keys are not mapped correctly, and I had to try the keys individually to find the symbol I needed. What happens if you try a new nano file? Do all your keys work correctly? Do you arrow keys navigate as expected?

tdyne

Thanks Chuckster1! Everything works fine with other files. It is only this file I have this strange issue. Still no luck sorting it out..

Sinamics

Evening All

We had some issues with our mail server, causing several mails to be deployed same users.
I apologize for the inconvenience it may caused you.

Regards
Bernt Christian

tdyne

I sorted out my issue by simply connecting to the pi with a screen&keyboard instead of SSH. And tonight I managed to get videostream from my quadcopter over 4G down through my cellphone and into my computer.. fantastic design Bernt!

However I am having a small issue.. If I activate the camera in DroneConfig.conf, then I only get camera and no telemetric (no connection in Mission Planner). But when I disable the camera, I get telemetric instantly.

I have forwarded both port 14550 and 5000.
I am running Quad: RaspberryPi 3 + Navio2 + Huawei E8278
GCS: Android phone + Windows laptop

Sinamics

Glad you made it tdyne.

Could you please post the folowing files, when trying to connect using both Telemetry & Video.

/log/wvdial
/log/Ardupilot
/log/gstreamer

tdyne

Thanks @Sinamics

Well, I posted the files here, which made me realize that I do not use wvdial as my Huawei E8278 has a built-in wifi router which I use. So I tried to connect the modem directly into one of the RPIs USB ports, without any luck there.

After a lot of testing I swapped the 4G modem with my cellphone and now suddenly everything works fine! The GCS is now connected to the Huawei e8278, and my UAV is connected to my mobile phone hotspot..

I do not know the exact reason why it works this way, but not the other way around. Maybe because of some port forwarding issues on my cellphone. But at least it works! (whatever floats your boat, right?)

Apparntley this also means I have to buy a second 4G modem, as I can not have my phone on my UAV..

(I decided to delete my two earlier posts with attachments to keep this entire discussion thread as nice and tidy as possible 🙂 )

tdyne

Ok, so I bought another 4G modem, but I got the same issue as I had initially.

Which means: both 4G modems works fine while connected to the GCS, but only with my cellphone connected to the UAV I get telemetry.

I am on deep water here, and not sure what makes it this way.

Sinamics

Hi tdyne
could you post the result of "ifconfig" with the E8278 connected?
I belive this dongle connects directly to your cell network when connected to the USB port. (The connection part is buildt in as you said).

Sinamics

Update

After some troubleshooting it was clear that main issue was DNS related.
Adding google DNS 8.8.8.8 to /etc/dhcpcd.conf solved the problem.

Keep us updated tdyne on your project.

tdyne

Thanks a lot @Sinamics for helping me out! Will post a video as soon as I get airborne.

Terrysavage

Hello

First of all thanks for all the info so far - My pixhawk is arriving very soon- i have everything else to get building.

I understand everything - i can see how i could get it working using WIFI on the LAN or even over a WAN with static IP's either end as p2p links are easy when IP's are local or static and you have control over firewall rules

My question is - If the 4G provider is using carrier grade NAT or blocking ports how do you connect the drone. Ideas i have is using a webserver or virtual private server (VPS) in the cloud, maybe using amazon AWS (they allow one server for free 24x7) to queue the commands. Maybe even a reverse SSH connection script on the Pi and then use a SSH tunnel to forward data.

I have a feeling when i get my 4G modem i wont get a static IP and if i do it will be NAT'd or ports blocked. Even if i do get a static IP and can connect what happens when you "change" to a different 4G network antenna during flight and the IP changes?

Ill keep you posted with the build, I was going to use DroneKit however decided to go with UAV Cast

My aim is to get it so i can boot the drone/pi, do NO work to it and it become available on the internet. Unsure how to best go about this to ENSURE the Pi is "available" on the internet regardless if NAT/FW are used by the 4G ISP.

Here is come commands that you may find useful:

Enable starting up on boot for the 3G dongle

root@kali:~# cat /etc/network/interfaces 
auto lo 
iface lo inet loopback 
allow-hotplug eth1 
iface eth1 inet dhcp 
root@kali:~#

This will stop the 4G USB dongle from being mounted as a storage device instead of a modem:

root@kali:~# wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/digidietze/usb-modeswitchdata/master/40- usb_modeswitch.rules 
--2015-11-22 02:27:51--  https://raw.githubusercontent.com/digidietze/usbmodeswitch-data/master/40-usb_modeswitch.rules
Resolving raw.githubusercontent.com (raw.githubusercontent.com)... 185.31.18.133, 64:ff9b::b91f:1285
Connecting to raw.githubusercontent.com (raw.githubusercontent.com)|185.31.18.133|:443... connected. 
HTTP request sent, awaiting response... 200 OK 
Length: 26132 (26K) [text/plain] Saving to: ‘40-usb_modeswitch.rules’

40-usb_modeswitch.rules                              
100%[========================================>]  25.52K  --.-KB/s   in 0.04s   
 
2015-11-22 02:27:52 (571 KB/s) - ‘40-usb_modeswitch.rules’ saved [26132/26132] 
 

root@kali:~# mv 40-usb_modeswitch.rules /lib/udev/rules.d/ 
root@kali:~# reboot

Can you buy 4G transmitters ? 😃

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