Decide its time to give this project its own thread.
So whats it all about?
Like everyone else, having been doing fpv for a while, I now have the urge to fly a bit further. However looking round the tracking systems that are available are just a bit too expensive for me.
Anyway I thought.. how hard can it be?
Heres the second video first for the benefit of those that have seen the first already. (The first ones at the bottom)
Note that though I am setting things up for my system , I am keeping in mind other ways of doing things. I hope that by changing some switches you can eventually use e.g a video audio channel for telemetry like the EZ tiny telemetry and others. In other words I hope to make the thing modular and flexible enough to cater for various different setups. One thing I do know. With the STM32F4 micro on board there is a huge amount of processing power availabel to do a lot of stuff. It has to be the awesomest microcontroller out there by a mile !
Anyway ... some progress!
DIY Antenna tracker using STM32f4 Discovery board, Quadrature Encoder PD working (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=khQ5NLhkuyo#)
Heres the first video. where I am getting the bits together.
Diy FPV Antenna Tracker using stm32f4 Pololu motor Ardupilot autopilot Frsky telem (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=un9b23y9EsY#)
I am hoping to put some more detailed info on my website at some stage, but as you may know, programming is much more fun than documentation... at least till you have to revisit it :laugh:
regards
Andy
Excellent work, looks very promising :)
Quote from: Coyote on November 15, 2012, 04:29:36 PM
Excellent work, looks very promising :)
Thanks for the encouragement Coyote!
I'm quite keen to emulate your 10 km flight. :P
Matching that might be difficult but I may as well aim high and I''ll certainly need a tracker I think. Just got to try to keep it simple to start with.
regards
Andy
:popcorn: really looking forward to the rest of this :)
dizzy
Quote from: Dizzy on November 17, 2012, 05:18:29 PM
:popcorn: really looking forward to the rest of this :)
dizzy
Thanks for the interest.
Actually I think it might not be very difficult to get it to work with the EZtracker ( and still have continuous rotation), if I set it up to read servo pulses!
Am looking into it as an option!
regards
Andy
Quote from: aitch on November 19, 2012, 12:27:10 PM
dont think the eztracker supports continuous rotation ... does it ?
Aitch :laugh:
Dunno yet... Trying to get my hands on one, without forking out, (seeeing as that the point of the project!) Theoretically it should work fine!
Would be nice if it does though!
regards
Andy
No it doesn`t support continuous rotation, 360 degrees only
Quote from: Coyote on November 19, 2012, 01:08:42 PM
No it doesn`t support continuous rotation, 360 degrees only
Well technically that is continuous, since 0 degrees equals 360 degrees. Anyway I assume that is is just using the servo pulse to tell the servo where to put itself :
http://www.immersionrc.com/manuals/EzAntennaTrackerLiteUserManual.pdf (http://www.immersionrc.com/manuals/EzAntennaTrackerLiteUserManual.pdf)
Because most hobby servos cant go all the way round then its academic fro them but since my servo can then its merely a question of how you get from 359 to 0 . Most servos can only go one way, but mine can go either way :D
It is possible to set it up for servos wth more that 360 degrees rotation, but my approach would be to set it up for 0 - 359 degrees.
The only issue is if it tries to be smart and when it wants to move from (say) 359 degrees back to 0, to do it gradually in steps.
However the "
servo speed" setting (2:13) may be what adjusts that. If it doesnt try to be smart then the servo algorithm that reads the position commands (the pulses) can decide which is the shortest path to go from 359 back to 0 and go that direction.
Anyway even if it doesnt (but my hunch is it will work ok) I might consider writing to immersionrc ,showing my video and suggest that it would be easily possible to do so in a later version (that is go from a long pulse to a short pulse in one step), since they dont actually sell the mechanical parts anyway, that would increase the versality
regards
And
Most commonly used for the Pan on an antenna tracker is a "Sail Winch" servo - designed for use on rc sailing boats - they normally are capbable of approx. 4 complete 360 degree rotations.
It is the EZ Tracker setup that controls the 360 degrees rotation of the servo - can be set to anything up to 360 degrees.
Quote from: wgt40w on November 19, 2012, 06:54:26 PM
Most commonly used for the Pan on an antenna tracker is a "Sail Winch" servo - designed for use on rc sailing boats - they normally are capbable of approx. 4 complete 360 degree rotations.
It is the EZ Tracker setup that controls the 360 degrees rotation of the servo - can be set to anything up to 360 degrees.
If you look at the manual, it is possible to set up for maore than 360 degree rotation..
manual 2.15 "ServoCity pan/tilt mount , SPG785 Pan (2:1,
630 degree option), DDT500H Tilt"
Anyway I am pretty confident I could get continuous rotation from the EZtracker using my servo using an encoder rather than a pot for position info.
Its academic unless I can get one though without paying for it, however I am certainly looking into using the video audio channel to send data as the EZtracker does..
regards
Andy
After buying an Eagle Tree mount and not been overly impressed with it I have to decided to have a go at making my own.
The joys of working in a school and having a laser cutter!!
(http://s9.postimage.org/ww2bcyk5n/image.jpg) (http://postimage.org/image/ww2bcyk5n/)
(http://s9.postimage.org/vv22nu363/image.jpg) (http://postimage.org/image/vv22nu363/)
(http://s9.postimage.org/3w7wwz1jf/image.jpg) (http://postimage.org/image/3w7wwz1jf/)
Wow ... Looks nice!
Especially since my weakpoint is the mechanical hardware. Only got a hacksaw!
Pressing on with the software though.
regards
Andy
Yours look blmin awesome and super stable!!
Problem was with my Eagle Tree mount was the pan axis had load of play in it. I have bought a new pan servo drive and then made this to suit it all.
Just hope it works now. Will put it all together tonight and see what happens.
I have used this for the pan aspect of my tracker.
It is awesome and has LOADS of power!!!
It is also super smotth which is nice.
http://www.fast-lad.co.uk/store/products_50kg_ultra_torque_servo_rotation_10226031-p-18911.html (http://www.fast-lad.co.uk/store/products_50kg_ultra_torque_servo_rotation_10226031-p-18911.html)
Quote from: Teamftp on November 20, 2012, 03:30:00 PM
I have used this for the pan aspect of my tracker.
It is awesome and has LOADS of power!!!
It is also super smotth which is nice.
http://www.fast-lad.co.uk/store/products_50kg_ultra_torque_servo_rotation_10226031-p-18911.html (http://www.fast-lad.co.uk/store/products_50kg_ultra_torque_servo_rotation_10226031-p-18911.html)
Blimey - what antenna would you put on top of one of these ?? The whole Post Office tower maybe ??
Wow that`s some size / price, but looks the part for sure :)
Continuing on with my antenna tracker project. Cobbled together another video, but should probably redo it, as it aint that good, but hopefully it'll be of interest to somebody!
Anyway here it is... DIY antenna tracker Part 3 - Transmitting Data from Ardupilot down the FrSky telemetry link (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXUE9rawn7w#)
Hopefully will get around to writing all this up and putting up some code at some stage soon!
Though the link is for sending data from the ArduPilot to Frsky, with the mighty stm32f4 in the loop it would be easily possible to use the Video vertical retrace or audio.
Actually the stm32 is capable even to write a full OSD. (There is some code for an stm32 OSD lurking around the OpenPilot project).
Anyway I hope to mess around with some of these ways of sending data so the project isnt just restricted to my hardware.
Hope I can get some more details about the project on my website soon!
regards
andy
:thumbsup:
PK
Looking good :)
Thanks for the support guys :)
I hope to get started on some more detailed documentation and making source code available in the near future.
regards
Andy
Update on my antenna tracker project.
Recently I have been concentrating on the airborne part , converting the data from the Ardupilot, which is in Mavlink (http://qgroundcontrol.org/mavlink/start) protocol to
a suitably lightweight protocol for the FrSky telemetry receiver whic is limited to about 120 bytes per second.
I managed to get some custom hardware done in the form of a freestanding stm32f4 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/STM32#STM32_F4) board small enough to fit in my plane.
I also got a little GUI application going to display the data which comes out of the FrsKy serial port.. a very basic Ground Station
Here is a hurried video of the latest efforts.
DIY Antenna Tracker stm32f4 Ardupilot Mavlink to FrSky Part2 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylJrIaC0l00#)
Am really pleased to be starting to master the stm32f4 micro. I hope to write down some HOWTO's about it ( e.g. free and Open Source compilers and firmware programmers!) It leaves the avr micros ( Arduino) in the dust for features and performance.
Now I have to seriously get down to writing up and posting details of the software and getting back to the actual tracker hardware. Still plenty of work ahead!
Fun though!
regards
Andy
I'm pleased to announce that the source code fro the Ardupilot to Frsky converter is up.
https://github.com/kwikius/mavlink_to_frsky (https://github.com/kwikius/mavlink_to_frsky)
I now need to get on with some docs! Of course it aint much use without a client app to read the data at the other end, so thats my other task.
regards
Andy
I'm pleased to announce the code for the GUI app to present the FrSky telemetry Data on the PC is up !
https://github.com/kwikius/frsky_data (https://github.com/kwikius/frsky_data)
It is Linux only at the moment, unless anyone wants to try porting it. It uses wxWindows so should be portable, just needs a rewrite of the serial port!
See it in action at 0;50 in the video...
DIY Antenna Tracker Part 3a - stm32f4 Ardupilot Mavlink to FrSky on custom PCB (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylJrIaC0l00#)
Hope to get more docs, circuits and generally detailed info about the project up soon at :
http://www.softpainter.org/fpv/antenna_tracker/index.html (http://www.softpainter.org/fpv/antenna_tracker/index.html)
Next on to hacking the guts out of a RcTx and applying another microcontroller to it to send TX data via a high speed Serial link ( probably
RS422 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RS-422), (since The max RS232 baud rate goes down as the line gets longer).
Great fun so far!
regards
Andy
Hi All !
Been coding away at my antenna tracker project.
To use the FrSky Telemetry system to return the GPS data for my tracker I decided to mount the FrSky RcTransmitter module on the revolving part of the tracker, as the telemetry data comes back out of the FrSky Tx module serial port.
The advantage is that the RC system can have a directional antenna as well as the Video.
Of course the problem then is how to get the commands from the handset to the Transmitter module.
So here's Part 4 - Demonstrating Sending servo commands to the Frsky RC transmitter down a serial link...
Diy Antenna Tracker part 4 - Send servo commands to RC transmitter via PC Serial port (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wmY5voHKBOA#)
The nice thing is that once this is achieved you really dont need to spend a lot of money on a RC system. You can do any mixing you like in software at either end of the link. I plan to use a cheap RC transmitter handset instead of the PC. You could also use a PC joystick., but can potentially have the functionality of a very expensive RC system for the price of a FrSky system. ( about £40 for Tx DHT and RX D8R2 module last time I looked)
Hope to get source code for this part up soon. Meanwhile, dont forget that source code is available for other parts of the project...
Onboard Mavlink to FrSky conversion software
https://github.com/kwikius/mavlink_to_frsky (https://github.com/kwikius/mavlink_to_frsky)
PC GUI viewer for the Mavlink to FrSky data
https://github.com/kwikius/frsky_data (https://github.com/kwikius/frsky_data)
Hope to get started on the mechanical part soon!
regards
Andy
Looking very promising :)
Quote from: Coyote on February 24, 2013, 11:40:42 AM
Looking very promising :)
Thanks for the encouragement Coyote!
I have been working on the mechanical parts over the weekend and am now just about to connect everything up.
Heres some pics of the beast. ( Apologies for crap photos ... done on my fone)
(http://s3.postimage.org/bidy7n2q7/diy_tracker1.jpg) (http://postimage.org/image/bidy7n2q7/)
(http://s14.postimage.org/o4p6jxsjx/diy_tracker2.jpg) (http://postimage.org/image/o4p6jxsjx/)
(http://s13.postimage.org/cnkv9k6n7/diy_tracker3.jpg) (http://postimage.org/image/cnkv9k6n7/)
I made it pretty big, because I hate fiddling around in small spaces. I reckon it could be made much more comapct of course once its sorted.
What you have in there is a pololu motor with encoder so giving continuous rotation.. With the gearing it gives 9600 steps per revolution.
The commands and video signals use slip rings to cross the rotating part. The H-bridge uses an L298 . Got it from Ebay fro a few quid.
The Elevation servo calls itself a Supertec S04 from JP. I reckon it must be 10 years old by now. Its a slow old bugger, but got some serious torque! I found it in the bottom of my spares box.
Got to get that wired up using a UBEC, which is on order from ebay. mEanwhile can just use a 5v nimh pack.
The PCB is the stm32f4 Discovery board. The STM32F4 is a fantastic Microcontroller. These devel boards are about £10 from Farnell etc. A real bargain.
The whole thing runs on a 3S lipo. I made sure there is plenty of room to get any size in there.
Anyway ... Just about to connect all the jumpers and fire it up! Of course will let you all know how it goes!
Unfortunately not got round to uploading the code for this bit yet. There are a few bits to be done on it
There is a bit more info on my website http://www.softpainter.org/fpv/antenna_tracker/index.html (http://www.softpainter.org/fpv/antenna_tracker/index.html)
I hope to update the website too with much more detaill , but just a question of fitting in time to do it!
Oh and sorry for the shakey camera work on all the vids :o
Oh and if you are interested in the project please do subscribe to my YouTube channel airtensor (http://www.youtube.com/user/airtensor) ;D
regards
Andy
Quote from: aitch on February 25, 2013, 02:32:54 PM
this is seriously cool
with all the work you have put into this, once up and running you should consider repackaging in laser cut acrylic and then selling them, im sure theres good money to be had even selling at a reasonable price
get some return on your time and effort
Aitch :laugh:
Hi Aitch. Thanks for the compliments. Yeh I should sell it should I :)
However I plan to make the software open source. It will be free to download. The Discovery demo board comes with its own on board programmer. All you need is a bit of software on your pc to program it and a usb phone cable I just need to polish off a bit before putting a rough n ready version up on GitHub.
It should be possible to make using off the shelf components. Everything in there you can buy quite cheap if you look around. (You have to loo around though If you buy a motor from Pololu it costs £40, but currently on amazon its £20). Eventually I'll make a PCB if it takes off but for the moment you can just solder to the pins on the Discovery board.
I reckon it would cost around £80 + maybe a bit for pnp, for the bits.
As for a fancy case.. I'm sure that someone could come up with a nice once the firmware is sorted!
Anyway. Plugged it all in and is working ok ! Hope to do a vid of it going round n round soon, but thinking how to do better vids.. My vids are crap! :o
regards
Andy
It goes!
DIY Antenna Tracker - mechanicals working (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TNnK1Daz8L8#)
Finally starting to look like an antenna tracker!
Coding should get a bit simpler from here on in! ;)
regards
Andy
Hi again All.
Tracker is nearly finished when... I was due to start testing the tracker outside when of course the weather started getting right royal miserable. So I decided to do a little App on the PC that simulates my plane flying about and sends the GPS data to the tracker. Turned out quite well. You fly the plane about with the mouse and so you can see exactly how well the tracker is doing. Works a treat!
Heres a vid of it all whirring
DIY antenna tracker in action using a PC to simulater the GPS data (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vSVEyz-xJO8#)
Next I guess I might have to try to tracking a real plane. Got a bit of work to do yet mounting the antennnas etc, but basically it works really well ... Yippee! :D
The idea of the project is all open source so soon I hope to have all the source code for both the tracker and the sim available. Might even get around to porting it to Windoze at some stage! You should be able to get all the bits this for under £100!
regards
Andy
Really coming together now Andy :)
Quote from: Coyote on March 12, 2013, 05:08:00 PM
Really coming together now Andy :)
Yep. I'm looking forward to trying this out for real. Been wanting a tracker for a long time. Just got to fit a Vrx on and I can go flying. Looks like an OK day for it too. Probably wont get it done today though.
Hoping to get the source code up today. I realise that there should be other options to this such as connecting direct to a GPS receiver in the plane and sending data from that rather than using Ardupilot, and also using the video/audio signal rathen than FrSky as the Downlink. First things first though. But I hope to investigate all these options sooner or later. Also will have to put up some info about how to build it on my website..
Thanks again for the encouragement!
regards
Andy
Awesome work Andy!
I'm happy to announce that the source code is available.
The Antenna tracker
https://github.com/kwikius/quantracker
The PC sim
https://github.com/kwikius/quantracker_sim
Currently its Linux only. I hope to do a Windows version at some stage.
I've also added the image files. I will have to get down to writing some HOWTO's and construction details for this project!
regards
Andy
Finally! Tracker Following my plane about the sky
(If you wondering where the plane is , skip to 2:36, 5:45, 7:04) Meanwhile will have to get a decent camera so I can see whats in the frame!
DIY Antenna tracker First real world testing (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__OkDlKh4Js#)
Next up is putting on the goggles I guess!
regrads
Andy
Looking good Andy, you must be chuffed!
Awesome project :) do you think a raspberry pi would drive the tracker?
Very nice Andy :)
Thanks Guys. Yes I'm pretty chuffed. It seems to work ok. I havent actually tried flying using it yet though, so that is the next milestone.
As far as doing it on Raspberry Pi. I guess so. The nice thing about the STM32 is that it has a module that turns the pulses from the encoder on the motor into a count. Usually you would have to have a separate ic to deal with that.
Anyway there are loads of things I want to do. Next is probably making an airborne unit that reads a gps direct so you dont have to have an Ardupilot. I want to make a mini plane to take on holiday so want it for that. Shouldnt be too difficult.
Also want to get the FrSky Tx mounted on the tracker with a directional antenna , as no doubt that will now limit my range.
Apart from that there is an awful lot I want to do, but what is there already ticks all the basic boxes.
Yep. I'm pretty chuffed..
Thanks for the support and comments. It really helps keep you going :)
Will also now have to get to work and write up the construction in much more detail.
regards
Andy
I'e been working on the construction details of the tracker on my website. I hope there will be lost more to come but meanwhile.... This is I hope is at least infinitely better that what was there before!
www.softpainter.org/fpv/antenna_tracker/index.html (http://www.softpainter.org/fpv/antenna_tracker/index.html)
I hope to do more soon! Also looking into using the FrSky Telemetry Hub for onboard telemetry as opposed to rolling my own. According to Bruce on RCModelReviews however the GPS update rate is 5 Hz, which is a no-go.
http://www.frsky-rc.com/showproducts.asp?id=92 (http://www.frsky-rc.com/showproducts.asp?id=92)
Anyone had any experience of the FrSky Telemetry Hub? Is it worth bothering to get or not?
regards
Andy
Hi All,
Having started to document the tracker, I realised that using the heavyweight STM32F4 for the airborne side task of translating from the Ardupilot Mavlink protocol to a lightweight protocol suitable for the FrSky telemetry system, was a classic case of using a sledgehammer to crack a nut. Therefore I decided to redo the code for the airborne side using the Arduino.
I havent tested the Arduino version in flight yet, but its working well on the bench and I dont foresee any problems.
(EDIT: The Arduino version is now flight tested with the goggles on and works just as well as the original.)
For those interested, the Arduino code is available at https://github.com/kwikius/mavlink_to_frsky/tree/master/arduino (https://github.com/kwikius/mavlink_to_frsky/tree/master/arduino). Its currently written for the Arduino Micro, but I have an Arduino Nano and an Arduino Pro Mini on order and I am pretty confident the code will work with them. Its also a doddle to wire it all up, so I'm quite pleased at the change.
Using the Arduino removes another hurdle to building this project. Now you shouldnt need anything much more complicated than a soldering iron and a screwdriver, and a hacksaw. All parts are pretty much off the shelf items.
For completeness here is the vid of the keychain cam mounted on the tracker, (which I already posted in the Diy Antenna Tracker thread in the OSD and Antenna trackers section)
DIY Antenna tracker - Tracker Cam using keychain #11 camera mounted ion tracker (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JzvukQ9rDgk#)
Now back to writing up the project!
regards
Andy
Info on bits required for the tracker and sources to get them...
http://www.softpainter.org/fpv/antenna_tracker/bill_of_materials.html (http://www.softpainter.org/fpv/antenna_tracker/bill_of_materials.html)
regards
Andy
Designing V2 of the tracker with FreeCAD http://www.freecadweb.org/ (http://www.freecadweb.org/)
Designing V2 of the DIY Antenna Tracker using FreeCad (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQHhKt2Wb38#)
regards
Andy
Good work Andy, any luck in adding the option for pan to be a servo?
(My attempts to go through the code on the STM32 only showed my lack of skills :)
Quote from: Kawobei on August 29, 2013, 02:04:20 PM
Good work Andy, any luck in adding the option for pan to be a servo?
(My attempts to go through the code on the STM32 only showed my lack of skills :)
I will try to get down to that in the next week . I got a bit sidetracked with my latest plane:
http://www.fpvhub.com/index.php/topic,14568.0.html (http://www.fpvhub.com/index.php/topic,14568.0.html)
However the tracker is to go back on top of the list.
I'll put that request first. :)
Meanwhile
I've got the basics of sending telem down the audio signal sorted, which I'm quite excited about.
Another thing I would like to try is using RSSI to track
http://www.fpvhub.com/index.php/topic,14933.0.html (http://www.fpvhub.com/index.php/topic,14933.0.html)
I think it would be cool to add an infra red strobe too!
http://www.fpvhub.com/index.php/topic,15296.0.html (http://www.fpvhub.com/index.php/topic,15296.0.html)
Anyway the tracker project is alive and well.
Be warned also that my website softpainter.org is going to die in a couple of weeks. I will get another site up and running but I just got fed up with the name softpainter and decided not to renew that domain.
I will contact you when the code is sorted.
regards
Andy