potentially a visual tracking system rather than using gps. A friend of mine is very knowledgable with the Pi so he suggested something like this instead of using solely gps for navigation. He knows how to program it and he has loads of Pi’s spare so he will give it a try.
@dkemxr not sure what GCS is. I’ve seen people connecting the Pi via telemetry so instead of battery 1 I want to receive data about the battery 2. I will try the User Items as you’ve instructed. Thank you
GCS = Ground Control Station = Mission Planner many times
Google “ardurover visual odometry” for some interesting info.
just seen this:
At the beginning it says gps disabled & further into the video it shows the waypoints on mission planner that the rover is following via visual odometry. Seems like it sticks to the WP’s really well. If it’s in a field can it do this?
Can this be more accurate that using gps or rtk?
no, Even if it were very accurate it still needs to know where it is in the world. i.e. it may be able to tell its moved EXACTLY 5m. But unless it knows where it started this is not very useful.
rtk is basically as good as it gets, as with everything there is no free lunch
Why the resistance to RTK? Based on some of your posts that you subsequently deleted your use case seems very similar to the mower application Kenny has posted about here and in other threads. Essentially an accurate grid auto mission. He has a very large mower with a big cut swath, you have a small Rover with presumably a small “search” path so your requirements or more stringent that his and he’s using RTK with Lora Telemetry.
But if you use both gps and visual odometry, which I’m guessing you can do would it improve accuracy by a huge amount or not much?
Odomotry might tell you how far you have moved, but you start location is still only as accurate as the GPS.
Use the stuff you have now and go out a test it, make some maps, then see where the improvements need to be.
That’s true I will try to focus on my current setup rather than making things more complicated when even the simple stuff is still yet to be working well. As always getting ahead of myself. Once I do some tests in good conditions like in an open field I will post my results
Wanted to ask if anyone knows how to zoom in whilst in * SimpleGrid — A simple auto-created survey grid. No camera control is defined, so this must be added separately.
I’ve been unable to zoom in on the map interface. Tried holding down shift and scrolling on the mouse pad and other basic zoom methods but nothing seems to work. Do I need a mouse with a scroll wheel to make it work for this?
I’m not sure what you are asking but there is a slider on the side of mission planner to some in on the map
Mouse scroll wheel or spread 2 fingers apart on a laptop trackpad.
What you said worked but for some strange reason when your in SimpleGrid it doesn’t allow you to zoom in to be able to see the waypoints clearly.
It’s restricted when I try to zoom in further like you would normally do
Hi Dave, could you do me a favour and have a look if you can zoom in further on Simple Grid please? When I tried you can zoom in and out but it seems restricted up to a certain point compared to all other map modes like in flight planner & using other auto waypoint map modes. When you have time If you can have a look you will see what I mean. Thanks
Hi Mus-Yes I see what what you are saying. There seems to be only 2 zoom levels when in SimplGrid. But if you accept it you can zoom further in the standard Flight Plan screen and move points around. I’m not sure if that helps you for what you are trying to do.
Change of subject-I created an account with our State supplier of fixed station RTK/NTRIP data via internet. It’s free and there are many base stations around, 2 by me within 10km or so. I don’t actually have a GPS Rover unit capable of using this at the moment but I might pick one up to play around with. As I mentioned before maybe this is offered in the UK?
Thanks for checking out the zoom feature in simple grid. Maybe the devs can implement better zoom in future updates? Not sure who to suggest that to but it’s an idea.
This sounds great for using base stations for people who want to use RTK modules like myself in the future. I live in Chislehurst, south east London. I did look up base stations on google but couldn’t find anything. I would even pay for a service like that if I could use it.
I’m going to put together a Rover and could use a couple of hardware recommendations to use with my Pixhawk. I need to buy both a GPS and a telemetry module. Any recommendations would be appreciated.
Chuck
Hi Chuck.
What version of Pixhawk do you have?
I purchased the mRo Pixhawk 2.4.6 Essential Kit.
Pretty much any generic M8N GPS module will do. I have probably 10 different modules from $18 to $60 (Here GNSS) and they all work pretty well*. For a mid priced quality unit these are good. I have one w/o the safety switch (which I don’t use on any vehicles/craft):
For telemetry any 915/433Mhz radio (depending on where you are) will work fine for 1-2km. For just configuration and calibration pourposes I like the ESP8266 radios but they are only good to 100-200m.
*It should be noted that expectations of positional accuracy should be realistic with a Rover. The general accuracy of any of these GPS units is in the several meter range. If you are coming from an aircraft it will be an eye opener when maneuvering on the ground. If you need better than that then consider that before buying any GPS module as there RTK systems available. At much greater cost of course!