Hi all, the events that I’m talking about are on lakes or or just offshore and we’ll be on the water for about 4-6 hours maximum. 2 metre marks would the the exception, most of the time the marks 1.2 -1.5 metres.
The reason that I’m looking here is that the commercial solutions are out of most club’s price range and over the long term an open source solution will be better.
I see the following parts to a potential solution:
- A GUI to calculate the mark coordinates and to send them and the instructions to the marks. Some instructions would be: move to x,y and loiter, move to x,y and drift, loiter in place, drift, etc
- a platform to hold the mark which will be different based on the application
- the electronics and software on the platform which will probably be basically the same for all applications
The GUI will be the easiest. A long time ago I wrote a little program that calculated mark locations based on a given course, wind direction and course length. The coordinates could be uploaded as waypoints into a GPS. This allowed my mark layer to lay a full trapezoid course within 15 minutes. He just used the go to option. Also, it displays the course in Google Earth if GE is running when you start the program. Here are the links to the program and a bit of documentation :
http://jpvm.org/Race%20Management/Peter%20van%20Muyden%20race%20management%20tools/Programs/GPSLoad%20readme.pdf http://jpvm.org/Race%20Management/Peter%20van%20Muyden%20race%20management%20tools/Programs/GPSLoad_install.exe
I suggest that you install it in a directory for which you have read write access. This is because there are a couple INI files included that allow you to configure the units and course configuration. The program works with or without a connected GPS. You can configure any course with up to 9 marks.
Overlaying the course on Google Earth is a powerful feature.
GE has a python API and is a very good tool for this.
Unlike the RC course, my course could cover 3KM. Will MavLink be able to cover that?
I know that 4 thruster Omni configurations are not supported, but can you use two pairs of thrusters for bigger platforms?