Process for Swarming Rovers

ArduRover Rover 3.3 / 3.4
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Hi Community & Devs,

I am trying to workout the process for Swarming on Mission Planner (latest version) with a rover running a pixhawk 2.4.8 with FW 3.4.2 and an APM(Ardupilot)…not sure the firmware off the cuff.

I followed the instructions from the Ardupilot docs but they were a little vague and not reflective of what i see on Mission Planner (MP). I have searched the net but not found anything to assist.

I was able to connect the two rovers, could see them on mission planner but was not able to get the follower vehicle to move. The leader moved but not the follower.

Can someone explain the process a little better? Also, could the follower rover running APM be the issue?

I appreciate you advice.

Regards
Ben

2

Ben,

Yes, it’s very likely the older firmware on the APM board does not support velocity control. I think we included velocity control in Rover-3.2 which only runs on the more modern flight controllers.

By the way, we also have a follow-mode built into Rover now. There’s a blog post here including a video. This will be released for beta testing as part of Rover-3.5 in a couple of weeks. It’s possible to download the developer version using MP’s install firmware screen after pressing Ctrl-Q.