Hello,
I am researching DIY drones options and have got an information remote control and actual drone signal receiver receiver (pilot controller) are programmed with each other. RC from one drone can not be used with another drone.
Is it correct?
Is it possible to program RC by my own to work with another drone?
How do users solve this issue for their DIY drones?
Thanks!
Generally a transmitter from a certain manufacturer does only work with receivers from that manufacturer. Then the frequency used must also match, of course. There are transmitters (Radiomaster TX16S i.e.) with a 2.4 GHz multiprotocol module built in. Those transmitters can bind to a whole lot of receivers from different manufacturers.
Thanks for details regarding this issue! If I have both transmitter and receiver, is it possible to reprogram them to make them work with each other? Do you (or any others this topic visitors) have any information on this?
I do not really understand what you mean by “reprogram”…
If the transmitter and the receiver were bought together as a set, they will work together. If you have a transmitter and different drones with different receivers, you have to make sure that the transmitter and receivers speak the same language. There usually is no way to reprogram a receiver from one manufacturer to work with a transmitter from another manufacturer. If you have the mentioned multiprotocol module, it will be possible to control all sorts of receivers. The multiprotocol module is also available as a transmitter module for transmitters with an external module bay.
I am touching topic which is new for me, so indeed it might be an issue to bridge the gap in terms and meanings. Here is more information.
My specialisation is software engineering. I mostly do high-level software development, but back to academia I had worked with some low-level programming too, e.g. programming PDP11 emulator or hacking software by exploiting vulnerabilities in some standard APIs. If both transmitter and receiver are made to work only with each other, it should be possible to make them work with different transmitter or receiver. It is only the case when we talk about firmware part - hardware limitations is another topic to consider.
I just have made a quick research about work principle of one protocol from the RC you mentioned above - CC2500.
Here is an overview how does this protocol work:
Based on this, support of the protocol by remote controller and autopilot controller means we can use any RC with this protocol support to control our drone.
My concern and question is do manufactures also add extra layer to this protocol to bind drone with RC supplied only by manufacturer to increase sales or prevent hijacking control over drone by malicious 3rd party?
If this is possible, do we able to flash our implementation of communication protocol between drone’s autopilot and our RC by standard interfaces or we would need a special programmer from the manufacturer?