Greetings mower folks. Grass is exploding everywhere this time of our year. Mow mow mow…
Bit of a ramble/wombling post, lots of stuff covered.
I’ve just returned from mapping and mowing a new lawn, I had some challenges editing a large flightplan - specifically workign around fixed obstacles eg trees. Since doing that i’ve cranked up QGC - QgroundControl which seems to edit existing flightplans - in particular mapping in a tree to drive around, a little easier. Your thoughts appreciated. Todays plan was around 700 WP’s (inc 350 do_set_cam_trigg_distance) - some plans exceed 1000.
Some notes/thoughts/niggles from todays fun in the sun :- (and it was fun, just to be clear)
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Mission planner waypoint numbers are really hard to read. More so in the field, on a phone, in the sun.
This is a challenge as resending the waypoint happens a lot … -
Large WP counts mean longer update times, then read back times. Write Fast is brilliant. Read fast would be also, as would upgrading to fast wifi on the rover im thinking. I will start removing the camera trigger entries.
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Biggest time suck for me today was engineering a hole in the plan to navigate around a number of trees, posts and the usual “do not mow” spots. Insert WP at current location, adds it with the correct location (where the mower is) but at the end of the flight plan - so position 700+. I found it easier to type in lat/longs than uparrow the new WP’s to their correct WP#. Im thinking QGC for the win. Oh, yeah any plan change needs an upload, then a read back to from the mower to get the WP’s into the Data page on the mower. This is a 3 minute process, repeated many times.
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Mission Tuning MP sometimes allows breaking a line between WP’s in two with a plus with a circle around it. New lines from new WP’s only. If the tree is in the middle of a large paddock, then there are no near WP’s to add, no easy lines to click in half. My initial survey was not as accurate or consistent as i would like - so trees were not where i had planned for them to be. Thats on me - lots of tools and errors.
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Mission Restart Im yet to learn how to go from HOLD (as in i crashed into a tree), flick to manual - reverse out and around, then resume the mission. It usually requires me finding the nearest/next WP and sending that manually, then back into Auto. Quite the faff. Any better ways ? im so open to suggestions, other than dont crash
Oh yeah, the mower was out of wifi range, so the walk to the mower, restart the motor, walk back to the base and PC to resend new WP got old. Only mow where the wifi goes makes sense. Time for more wifi power ! -
Extractng the WP’s from the Binary logfile as a KML was most useful, and interesting - check out the mower path around the trees… Which makes figuring out the new mission plan much easier. The inside circle is the “none shall pass” line. I manually drove the plan to map it up.
- Tools im using - Google earth pro (free) to manage KML’s SW Maps for some mapping, mission planner and QGC for managing the flight plans.
- Companion Computer time or Lua Scriptiong Im thinking - time for the mower to retrieve its RTK corrections directly from the internet (rtk2go.com) so Wifi gear into mower. Any pointers appreciated - im looking for a robust wifi radio to stick on the mower. What works ?? A local vendor pointed me at this - which seems overkill MikroTik Routers and Wireless - Products: NetMetal ax but up to task.
- FPV camera needs solid wifi, so thats in there too. Im looking forward to glueing all these bits together with ppp into the Zealot and a PoE router driving the wifi and camera gear.
- Zig Zag flight plans - ie mower alternates forwards/reverse each mow strip - way quicker in testing, but im yet to script WP changes. This is a high prioirity as it solves a bunch of issues.
whew !