Is there a way to fly a mission from point A to point B with the copter facing forwards, then once point B is reached fly back to point A backwards - in other words, keep facing towards A while flying back to B? My thinking is that if I wanted to maximise RF signal strength, having the antenna always on the closest side of the copter would help with that rather than have the copter turn around and have the antenna on the furthest side on the way back. I realise I could probably put the antenna on the side of the copter, but then the antenna would be between two carbon booms. What say you guys? Thanks in advance.
You could try this.
After you reach point B, add the MP command MAV_CMD_DO_SET_ROI and point it at B, then set it to fly back to point A (which would actualyl be point C)
By default, everytime the craft passes a waypoint, it will want to “point” towards the next waypoint. If you want to keep it facing a particular direction (assuming you have more than 2-3 waypoints) then you have to do the MAV_CMD_DO_SET_ROI command after passing every single waypoint. That’ll keep it pointing in the same direction all the time.
An equally useful way to use this. If you want to point the camera at a point in middle of your flight path the whole time (like flying around a subject), you can do the same thing. Create your flight path and set the MAV_CMD_DO_SET_ROI to that point after every waypoint.
EDIT: According this the above link, post AC3.2 you don’t have to reset the command after every waypoint.
It’s easier than a MAV_CMD_DO_SET_ROI… use Condition-Yaw http://ardupilot.org/copter/docs/mission-command-list.html