I am trying to build an autonomous quadcopter system using a Pixhawk 2.4.1, controlled using the latest Mission Planner GCS. However, I am facing trouble during the Mandatory Calibration on the Mission Planner.
As I mentioned above, since I was trying to build a fully autonomous system, I avoided purchasing a RC Transmitter and instead bought a Telemetry System (SiK Radio). However, the RC calibration on the Mission Planner seems to require a RC Transmitter to calibrate the throttle values. Is there any way to bypass this calibration or perform it using the telemetry radio system?
If all options fail, are there any Virtual joysticks (Android?) that I can use, to establish a controller link via the Telemetry.
The recommendation, and you could say requirement, is to start with an RC transmitter and reciever because you’ll have issues to sort out and you’ll need to take control on occasions during testing and tuning.
If you get everything working 100% then it’s up to you if you want to remove the RC and disable it’s arming checks and failsafes.
Autonomous or not you really need an RC system to setup, configure and tune a multirotor. That said you can use a joystick or game controller via telemetry. Standard Sik radios though have a lot of latency. With an ESP8266 WiFi radio its not bad but the range is very limited. I have used a Logitech game controller for this purpose with a Rover but the control is poor.
You need to do more than that to get it flying properly. QGroundControl has virtual joysticks, never used them. Its a bad idea to not have an RC system but to get around the RC calibration all you need to do is manually set the RC1-4 _MIN values to 1000. The RC1-4_TRIM values to 1500 and the RC1-4_MAX values to 2000.
Use the Motor Test function in Mission Planner to test if the motors are working and setup properly,
Well, I was initially planning to do so using a Virtual joystick and a Rasp Pi. I’m trying to develop my own programs for a research project. Just wanted to know if it was possible using current systems. My initial goal over here was to test the motors. However, I was under the impression the it was possible to develop a fully autonomous quadcopter using open source software.
It is possible, many are doing just that. And you don’t need a Raspberry Pi Arducopter has full autonomous functionality. But you can’t assemble it, connect the battery and expect it to fly properly w/o configuration and tuning and it’s not really practical to do this w/o an RC system. Once you have a multirotor tuned and flying properly you can initiate an Auto Mission from a Ground Control software app but even then its wise to have RC control as a back-up for when something goes wrong. You don’t have to look far in this forum to find many things that can go wrong…
Okay! Thanks a million! Also, is it mandatory to complete Radio calibration accurately before attempting ESC calibration?
P.S: I was browsing through some other forum, and found someone facing the same issue mention something about changing RC mode. Could you please explain what this means.
I have read somewhere that if I put 1 COM_IN_RC, then I can control my pixhawk without RC Transmitter, But I didn’t find such mode of operation in mission planner. So is there any solution to it, where I can calibrate radio without RC transmitter. Please help me out, I am in serious trouble now. Thank you in advance.
Hi, you can get a decent RC set for 50 bucks which is less than the cash you will inevitably need to spend on spares following the first crash caused by lack of RC.
For a first build it does look like a no brainer, then yes a joystick would work if perfectly setup although with potentially dangerous range, latency and overall reliability issues.
Good luck anyway