Wow!

Can I program this system to fly a fixed wing RC model to a gps coordinate
well out of my sight and 72 MHz radio control
Then circle for a designated number of times while taking images and or video
Then ‘ardupilot’ flies home (for lack of terminology)
Then at my command
switch off ‘ardupilot’
and land the model under 72 MHz control?

Thanks
John

Originally Posted by HappyKillmore

I understand. His experience has been strictly FPV and not UAV so I might not be speaking correctly here about this issue. I hate to say it, but most of my time is spent in front of the computer and I kind of leave it up to you guys to go out in the field and actually do it! I've never even had a single UAV flight so far. All my UAV flying happens in simulation! I'm going to change that this summer... but my kids and wife limit my time outdoors.... flying anyhow. There's PLENTY of time for yardwork!?!?

I don't use the Ap to do UAV (yet!) I only use it so far as a measure of security to take over my Egpro (FPV machine) when I stretch to much the RC link and lost the control over the model.

I usually can activate the Ap and do something I need (for instance changing antennas) with absolute peace of mind, the Ap is looking over my model.

BUT this confidence has been hit some how due to a premature failure of the copilot processing unit , hopefully the model was still in the ground when it happen

Originally Posted by chaosMurphy

Wow!

Can I program this system to fly a fixed wing RC model to a gps coordinate
well out of my sight and 72 MHz radio control
Then circle for a designated number of times while taking images and or video
Then ‘ardupilot’ flies home (for lack of terminology)
Then at my command
switch off ‘ardupilot’
and land the model under 72 MHz control?

Thanks
John

Yes sir, that's exactly right.

I have all of the things needed and I'm very interested in getting this working

Is the ublox GPS recommended by Ardupilot better than the one included with remzibi? Could somebody make a revision to the remzibi firmware to allow it to use the ublox protocol.

Will there be a firmware revision in the future to provide an artificial horizon? If Ardupilot is feeding in data from the IMU the roll and pitch angles would be available to the OSD and I'd love an artificial horizon option.

This thread is exactly what I've been looking for. I've been flying with a Remzibi unit since last summer and can't praise it enough. The integration of the Remzibi and the ArduPilot seemed like the next step so I purchased the ArduPilot unit and cable. I followed Charles Beener's posts concerning the use of a Wii Nunchuck instead of the expensive thermal sensors and got an Arduino Duemilanove and started to play around with it. I read and re-read the "Integration" thread but the Nunchuck idea seemed to have petered out.
I'm sorry to say that although I have a degree in electronics my knowledge of computers is very sketchy, my background being C&I for heavy machinery. When I tried to follow instructions, which some one involved with I.T. would find quite straight forward, there seemed to be steps missing and the terminology needed continuous Wikipedia searches. For example, every body knows what a Route Directory is, I had to find out. Simple obvious stuff like this slowed me down.
If you can give micro step by step instructions then every one will benefit and more people will get involved. My goal is to get the auto pilot working, maybe with the Nunchuck, maybe not, and all the other possibilities, GPS tracking etc.
Thanks for starting this thread I'm sure a lot of people will be subscribing.

“Yes sir, that's exactly right.”, HappyKillmore

Exactly what I am looking for.


Subscribed

John

Originally Posted by AndrewBurns

I have all of the things needed and I'm very interested in getting this working

Is the ublox GPS recommended by Ardupilot better than the one included with remzibi? Could somebody make a revision to the remzibi firmware to allow it to use the ublox protocol.

Will there be a firmware revision in the future to provide an artificial horizon? If Ardupilot is feeding in data from the IMU the roll and pitch angles would be available to the OSD and I'd love an artificial horizon option.

The quality of the uBlox is much higher than the NMEA GPS that ships with Remzibi's OSD. It also has an external antenna which should be much better at getting and maintaining satellite comminucations in flight. But it costs another $90 for the GPS http://store.diydrones.com/product_p/spk-gps-gs407.htm and $20 for the adapter http://store.diydrones.com/product_p/br-0008-01.htm

Better, yes, cheaper, no.

It also talks a different language (binary protocol) by default. You can turn on NMEA sentences to make it talk to the OSD, but that defeats the benefits of the much smaller and faster binary protocol.

I suspect by the time I finish step #5 of this writeup I'll do the uBlox to NMEA output conversion....

>>>> out of stock <<< ArduShield V2 ~$57 (with cables, headers, etc) + Shipping

How will this little glitch impact my build?

John

Happy i will buy the EM406 SiRF III GPS just in case, and by the way aren´t we gonna ned the Co Pilot Sensor Modul, i understand that the arduIMU dont need that but for the Ardupilot does or not??

Originally Posted by chaosMurphy

>>>> out of stock <<< ArduShield V2 ~$57 (with cables, headers, etc) + Shipping

How will this little glitch impact my build?

John

I think they are out of a cable. Maybe do this:
http://store.diydrones.com/product_p/br-0002-10.htm
and add the rest of the cables later?

The ArduShield "Kit" includes a Pitot Tube, the wiring between the shield and the sensors (we don't need that) and a toggle switch (which I have not used so far).

In some ways, I'm figuring this out as I go along. I've had it working in the past with firmware 2.3.1 and the sensors, but not the ArduIMU.

I'm thinking we still need the ArduShield, but I could be wrong. It's the only reliable way the ArduPilot can tell if we have forward movement. The ArduIMU takes the place of the thermopile sensors but I still think we need the pressure sensor on the shield.

So far, I've done some testing with the ArduShield and I'm happy to report that I actually go GPS lock on my ArduShield V1 with Remzibi's GPS at 38,400. It took about 4 minutes to lock in (almost twice as long as without the shield) but I have not been able to get it to work with the V2 Sheild yet. Directions to follow....

Erec10, no need for co-pilot, we're going to get the ArduPilot working with the ArduIMU.

It doesn't matter which GPS you use until we get to step #5 where the GPS data gets passed to the OSD which is only compatible with NMEA. What we can do is setup a bunch of variables and store the data as it comes in from the uBlox or whatever GPS and then rebuild the required NMEA sentences for the Remzibi OSD....

"You should be able to double click on any of the .pde files in C:\Projects\ArduPilot\ArduPilot_2_6 and it should open the Arduino development environment (also called "Processing" if it pops up asking what program to open with)."

Yes i did! Ok

Click the tab labelled "ap_2_6_header.h" and change line #define GPS_PROTOCOL 2 to #define GPS_PROTOCOL 0. This will enable the NMEA protocol. NOTE: Be SURE to hit the SAVE button after editing anything on a tab!!!

No! i didn´t open this file i get this error log all the times i have try!

You should be double clicking on the file ArduPilot_2_6.pde... then once the Arduino Editor (Processing) is open, then there is a tab called "ap_2_6_header.h." You can't see it because you have Windows hiding "extensions for known file types". So you don't know that you're double-clicking on a .h file when you should be clicking on a .pde file.

Thank you Microsoft for such a stupid default setting in Windows!

Well i was going crazy because of this so try other way: i copy all the .pde files plus the .h files and past on the Arduino Library then i open it and like magic they were all there. this was donne befor i read you post so for now its working, i will try the gps lock with the transmitter on because i still haven´t got the servo driver. Another question: after we made the change on the Arduino:
"Click the tab labelled "ap_2_6_header.h" and change line #define GPS_PROTOCOL 2 to #define GPS_PROTOCOL 0. This will enable the NMEA protocol. NOTE: Be SURE to hit the SAVE button after editing anything on a tab!!!"
- don´t we have to upload this new information to the Ardupilot? so that the AP receive the info from the OSD GPS.

I've figured out the ArduShield!!! I now have a rock steady blue light! Details coming VERY soon!