First, i want to apologize in case this is the wrong forum for my question. I’ve looked through the available sections and this seems to be the most appropriate.
Some background: I am a physics graduate student working on constructing a quadcopter (which happens to be my first attempt). I purchased the electronic components from the 3drobotics shop and machined my own aluminum chassis. At this point, electronic component wise, I have purchased everything except for a RC controller - in part to reduce the total cost and in part due to the nature of the project. The project intends to look at smart control algorithms to go beyond flight control and into autonomous decision making. This will (optimistically speaking…) include very basic versions of target identification and tracking as well as collision detection and evasion. At this point, I have finished chassis construction and mounted all of the components.
Now for the big question - up to this point, I have assumed that I can complete calibration without having a RC transmitter but after reviewing the setup pages found here:http://copter.ardupilot.com/wiki/initial-setup/
I am not so sure that I can anymore since several sets of instructions refer to an input combination intended to arm the motors. Could the experts on these forums give any guidance on this? Do I have no choice but to get a transmitter in order to complete calibration before moving on with the project or is it possible to complete calibration without the RC transmitter? It is worth noting that I have the following flight controller including the telemetry kit:https://store.3drobotics.com/products/apm-2-6-kit-1
Included telemetry kit: https://store.3drobotics.com/products/3dr-radio
Thank you all for your time. I appreciate any help.
I’m interested in the answer you receive regarding running ArduPilot without R.C transmitter as I am interested to know if Mission Planner ground station is required ?
P.S - Have you considered using “PixyCam” cmucam5. It recognises objects… etc… & has arduino libraries.
& it’s super cheap.
[quote=“Mickman”]I’m interested in the answer you receive regarding running ArduPilot without R.C transmitter as I am interested to know if Mission Planner ground station is required ?
P.S - Have you considered using “PixyCam” cmucam5. It recognises objects… etc… & has arduino libraries.
& it’s super cheap. [/quote]
Definitely one of the two is required. You have to tell the UAV to arm and to start a flight. These are escential safety features… without that you would have to se it to automatically do those things, and then we’d be talking about a very dangeous and uncontrolable situation. Unless of course you are implying the use of some other GCS.
One of the mandatory configurations is radio configuration. Perhaps you can bypass throttle failsafe, but I’m not sure what the situation is for radio pre-arm check. If I have my radio turned off and let my UAV warm up, it doesn’t complain about the radio not being on… however I haven’t (dared) try arming with the radio off.
I don’t have radio FS turned off, nor radio pre-arm masked.
Sorry it has taken so long to reply to this message.
We are moving away from needing the RC input but at the moment our control architecture requires that an RC transmitter is required (there are the beginnings of being able to everything with a tablet but it still needs development) If you are interested in helping us write that code, please message me.
