Companion for my H

griz11 · Jun 15, 2016

I've been working on an autonomous rover for a few months now. Eventually I want to link up with the H with it. I'm thinking I can wire into the wizard to control the H from the rover. But what I'm really after is images from the intel camera. With a drone flying ahead and above I can use those images to make maps for the rover so it doesn't have to stop and do that whenever it enters an area it hasn't been in before.

As you can see if I move the mast the H could actually land on top. Its a large rover. Does anyone know if the video feed coming back from the H is encrypted? I really don't want to hack the drone hoping I can just grab the video and use the modified wizard to control the H.

I love flying the drone. So easy. I've had other airborne models before and wrecked them all before ever actually flying them. This is much easier. The only problem I have is seeing the lights when its far away but I've been flying pretty low. I was told to get up higher and its much easier to see the drone and the lights. Much quicker than I thought it would be really zips along in rabbit mode.

Griz

Yuneec Pilot · Oct 22, 2016

Wow...

BobW55 · Oct 24, 2016

Maybe you could use theAndroid apk for use with the steady grip to capture the video.

griz11 · Oct 24, 2016

Had to do a slight redesign. The suspension pivot mounted on the plexi flexed it too much and it broke in half on a test run. Hit a hole I couldn't see because of the tall grass. All of a sudden I noticed the back was almost dragging the ground. So now it has an aluminum base and a complete subframe. The suspension pivot is on that subframe now so the base that holds all the goodies isn't stressed at all. I shortened it up to 18in wheelbase so it can turn on itself. The newest firmware for the Pix has 4 wheel steering so I'll be putting that back on soon. Just a lot of work to put it all back together and I'm waiting on a Pixhawk II for my big drone so I can put the Pixhawk back on the rover. Two typhoons back to back in Taiwan moved the ship dates back. In the meantime the big drone is almost flying. Still trying to tip over when it launches. Ordered a tach so I can figure out what is going on with the motors. It also has an nvidia TK1. Not as much power as the rover's TX1 but it doesn't draw nearly as much current and the TX1 is mostly for vision processing which I'm not using on the drone. Hooking up a companion computer is really easy. A FTDI adapter and some software to enhance mavlink. Still flying the H. Had a runaway with the firmware snafu awhile back but only broke a couple of props. The camera is much better now. This is the H's big brother. A Tarot X6 960mm hexacopter. Capable of 9kg take off weight. 15in props until I get the gimbal and camera attached then I'm going to 18's. It has telemetry to my radio and also to a laptop. VTX FPV camera strobes on 4 arms. 10 leds per with controller. All that is operated via switches on the radio. 6 flight modes. Does autonomous flights via waypoints and is capable of swarming with the rover. Once the PixHawk II ships its going into this bird. Triple redundant sensors and many improvements over the PixHawk. Everything is vibration isolated so no need for velcro or pillow ball holders for the FC. Not that hard to build one. Lots of reading and testing involved. But Mission planner has all that and a decent wiki and there are tons of videos out there on APM and the PixHawk. Won't be flying this as much as my H though. Its mostly for hacking and playing with depth cameras and such.