MAVproxy / RPi 3 as GCS - a few questions

Ground Control Software MAVProxy
1

I recently started playing with MAVproxy and it looks pretty great. As I smashed my copter into a tree a few days ago and am waiting for spare parts, I was thinking of looking a bit closer into the whole GCS topic.

My basic idea is to use MAVproxy on an RPi3 as the brains of a GCS project. Connection to the MAV would happen through SiK or RFD868 radios. The RPi would get it’s own screen in the GCS to display the console. MAVproxy would forward the stream via serial to a µC to control some hardware and be a proxy for optional tablets / laptops running Mission Planner or QGC. Does this sound feasible?

Is there a module API documentation for MAVproxy? My Python skills are quite limited but I have some ideas for a module to interact with Hardware.

I have noticed the joystick module. Would that be usable in the described setup to control a copter or would the lag/latency be to big?

2

Yep, definitely feasible.

There’s documentation at MAVProxy, plus examples in the MAVProxy source at MAVProxy/MAVProxy/modules at master · ArduPilot/MAVProxy · GitHub

Yes, perfectly possible. The latency might be an issue if you’re thinking of quite rapid movements. If it’s slow and gentle movements, you should be ok.

3

Thanks Stephen :). I guess, it’s a project then :).
The copter in question is a 85cm, 2.8kg stretched Tarot 650 sport, which I fly 95% in Loiter or Auto. No touchy little race quad :D.

4

A few years ago I wrote a MAVLink decoder to control sim instruments from FlightIllusion. That’s the hardware I was mentioning :slight_smile:
See https://youtu.be/kC-oPrzU3OI