As the title suggests, I am trying to have multiple rovers follow a single gps unit (NMEA) at specified distances. I’ve been able to jerry-rig a solution by using a combination of the “Follow Me” feature, two rovers on the same multihop radio frequency, and a script that simulates my arrow key going back-and-forth between the two cars at a set frequency on my GCS. Although this works currently, I know there is a more robust way to achieve this same goal. In addition, I plan on adding more rovers which would make my current solution quite impractical. I was wondering if y’all had any suggestions for a better solution to my problem?
Some things I’ve noticed during testing is that:
-I am able to have both rovers independently follow the GPS location using Follow Me without any problem.
-Follow Me allows me to have multiple cars following at different distances, but it will only move the car if it is selected in the Mission Planner drop down window located in the top right. This is why I created the script that switches between each rover.
-I have had little success with the “Follow the Leader” feature. Although this might be a better solution, I have still yet to get it to actually work. I tried to test this by setting one of my rovers as the lead and the other as the follower using separate COM ports, but the follower only twitched its steering and did not actually follow. In addition, I prefer the way Follow Me works by setting a predetermined waypoint radius to follow without having to guess like in FTL.
If there is no available solution, I am about to look to see if I can modify the Follow Me code to allow me to move both cars at the same time. I am not sure if this is a simple task, but I was thinking that is the Follow the Leader function can control multiple cars at once, then it may be doable. I am by no means an expert in writing code, but it does not appear to be such a daunting task. Is this something you might recommend or is the architecture of Mission Planner not conducive to this task?