How does mission planner handle multiple telemetry sources

Ground Control Software Mission Planner
1

@Michael_Oborne

I was wondering how mission planner handles multiple telemetry connections. For example the main connection is via RFD900x doing PPM passthru to the aircraft but we have also hooked up 4 other telemetry streams that were broadcast via UDP. How does mission planner handle these streams is there a way to make one priority over the other? We were able to have some one control the aircraft that was 2000 miles away from us but once the flight was complete we got to thinking what happens when the FC gets multiple request at or near the same time from 2 different sources. Also have some questions about GCS failsafe and multiple connections, we have tested on the bench what happens when you disconnect one of the UDP streams will it enter a FS which luckily it has not yet but just curious if that could theoretically happen?

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there is multiple questions there, and i can answer them any ways. but ill answer each one as direct as possible given the limited information

  1. I was wondering how mission planner handles multiple telemetry connections? no issues here, MP treats each connection as its own data source. many people have tested this for connecting to 2-10+ vehicles.
    1a. you can also use something like wifi, where there are multiple vehicles one one connection, again works fine, you need to pick which one you want to talk to first. each vehicle has its own system id that is unique
  2. For example the main connection is via RFD900x doing PPM passthru to the aircraft but we have also hooked up 4 other telemetry streams that were broadcast via UDP.? MP treats them separately each one its its own vehicle. in your setup it offer redundancy via user selection, not by any automated means.
  3. How does mission planner handle these streams is there a way to make one priority over the other? it doesn’t, the user decides
    4.We were able to have some one control the aircraft that was 2000 miles away from us but once the flight was complete we got to thinking what happens when the FC gets multiple request at or near the same time from 2 different sources.? this is a ardupilot question, not a missionplanner question. but in theory each GCS should have its own sysid, and then use the parameter on the autopilot to lockout the other GCS’s. they will receive, but wont have the ability to send, until the parameter is changed.
  4. we have tested on the bench what happens when you disconnect one of the UDP streams will it enter a FS which luckily it has not yet but just curious if that could theoretically happen? MP sends a hb on all connections it creates, so im not sure why the autopilot would decide the failsafe if it lost one. it might be RC failsafe? and in that case has nothing to do with the GCS
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