ArduCopter to Follow ArduBoat: doable?

ArduRover ArduBoat
1

Hello Everyone, 1st post so hope no typos… I’m putting together an idea to measure air temperature gradients over lochs in Scotland (because science…). I have a working Arducopter and now have twin impeller kayak working with ArduBoat. I want to get the copter to be slave to the boat, so I assume putting copter into follow-me to the boat, get boat to Tx FOLLOW on a separate NetID , and the boat run the mission, commanded over other MAVlink. Sounds simple but that’s likely my ignorance: Has anyone tried this (and succeeded!). Failures might be expensive in number of drowned copters.

Thanks in advance

PhilatSAMS

2

Hi there!

There is a FOLLOW mode: https://ardupilot.org/copter/docs/follow-mode.html

I am not sure how it works between different vehicles. However, due to the offsets parameters in 3 dimensions, it seems to work.

cheers,

3

Thanks brunoolivieri, I read the FOLLOW mode but need to check that the position ‘advertised’ by the ArduBoat over MAVlink is the same protocols as parsed by 'Copter. I was hoping someone might pop up and say “Works a treat” to give me the confidence to assign time to the work. Alternative is just to have a separate 'Copter hardware rig strapped to the boat listening to GPS and advertising its position: but inelegant.

cheers