Gimbal control with ROI using Pixhawk

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1

Hi!
I’m attending a UAV’s master in Madrid Spain. We’re starting to make our thesis, consisting in a real flying fixed wing drone.
We thought about using a Pixhawk as the autopilot, since it seems to be he most complete and suitable hardware for our project. We will use a Skywalker X8 foam plane as a platform.
We need to mount a gimbal with a camera at the bottom of the X8, and the mission consists in flying around a target while pointing the camera to the target the whole time.
Is the Pixhawk capable of doing this using the gimbal to point the camera? I know there is an order when planning the mission called “Do-Set-ROI” and I’ve ssen it working in a multicopter, but I don’t know if it works with a gimbal installed in a fixed wing.
If so; can you recommend me a gimbal compatible with the Pixhawk?
Thanks a lot!

2

I know on my Discovery with a 2 axis gimbal in normal flight the gimbal can be manually tilted via the radio transmitter, but if you set the ROI on an auto mission then the Pixhawk will automatically adjust the gimbal tilt angle based on the height of the quad and the height of the ROI.

I would assume that a 3 axis gimbal would also do the same but with the Pixhawk adjusting the pan angle as well.

3

Thanks for your answer, Mark!
As a difference with yours, the gimbal for our project goes under the plane so we have a wide field of view.

Can you confirm that setting a ROI in Mission Planner will actually make the gimbal point the camera using both pan and tilt automatically in a plane? Is it working ok?

Thanks again.

4

I can’t confirm it myself as I only have a gimbal on my quad and not on either of my planes.

However, plane.ardupilot.com/wiki/common- … nd-events/ shows that do_set_roi is supported by arduplane so it should pan and tilt the camera to keep it pointing at the specified GPS coordinates and at the specified altitude within the limits of the gimbal.

5

Nice!
I read somewhere that it wasn’t working in planes, but I can’t find much information about it. I think I’ll take the long shot with the Pixhawk.

Thanks for your help.

6

Were you able to test this feature on fixed-wing with APM Plane? We are about to start ordering parts for an aerial surveillance platform and would like to know in advance if the ROI feature is working with the Plane version.

Thanks!

7

Not sure yet!
We’re in the middle of the project right now and parts will be bought in around 2 months.
I’ll be able to tell you then :slight_smile:

Sorry that I can’t help you very much (at least by now).