How to use SITL simulated vehicle to test a real antenna tracker?

AntennaTracker
1

Hello,

I would like to test a real antenna tracker, driven by a Pixhawk and the antenna tracker firmware, which is setup “in the middle” : on one side the antenna tracker is linked via 3DR radio to the vehicle, on the other side, it is linked to a PC running Mission planner with a second radio link.

(thus not in a configuration where mission planner is in the middle). The following scheme represents my setup:

Antenna tracker2.jpg780×302 71 KB

I am running SITL+MavProxy on Windows to simulate a quadcopter; so far so good.

How have SITL send out telemetry data over via serial radio from my laptop ?
I have read the wiki in detail for SITL & Mavproxy, nothing found. The Mavproxy “ouput add” command does not work to forward a mavlink ouput to a COM port : it crashes SITIL+Mavproxy with an error message:

_STABILIZE> output add com16
STABILIZE> Adding output com16
Exception in thread main_loop:
Traceback (most recent call last):
File “C:\Users\Stephen\Documents\MAVProxy\MAVProxy\build\mavproxy\out00-PYZ.py
z\threading”, line 810, in _bootstrap_inner
File “C:\Users\Stephen\Documents\MAVProxy\MAVProxy\build\mavproxy\out00-PYZ.py
z\threading”, line 763, in run
File “”, line 756, in main_loop
TypeError: argument must be an int, or have a fileno() method.

So I need some help from the community. Has anyone done that succesfully and if yes, how ?

2

Hi Hughes. As your aware we are working through the answer in github here:


I would of preferred to do it in the forum but I saw the github post before the forum post.

Thanks, Grant.

3

Hope this is not too late and it helps :–

To run SITL :–

No need to click “CONNECT”

  1. Connect AT controller to PC Mission Planner via USB port OR telemetry radio
  2. Click “Simulation
  3. Choose vehicle
  4. Top right hand corner changes from “connect” to “disconnect”.
  5. Wait for 3 minutes before clicking “Ctrl –F”
  6. “temp” windows pops up
  7. Click “Mavlink”
  8. “Serial output -Mavlink” window pops up.
  9. Select COM port and set speed to 57600, then click “Connect”, followed by long beep.
  10. Quad appears on AT screen
  11. On “Temp” windows, click “Arm and takeoff”.
  12. Then select whatever mode to fly in “Actions” tab under HUD.
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