I was wondering if anyone could help me with something that I am struggling with. I would like to stream video and if possible control the drone over the internet with a 3g/4g dongle attached to the drone (Raspberry pi)
At the moment I am using Navio2 with Raspberry pi 3 B on my Drone, all works perfectly, however, I would like to take a step further with 3G/4G dongle.
I am just asking because I have seen that you can do this with Navio2 but I cannot find any documentation about it.
Hi Manuel,
yes, can be done. I control mine successfully and video stream from drone via LTE.
However, can be a rather complicated to set up and get working:
a) just for control purposes a 3G USB dongle is fine. But for video streaming you need to have a 4G dongle in order to send large volumes of data across. This also means you need suitable download speeds on receiving end.
b) Need to have suitable 3G/4G dongle which works with Raspberry pi without extra startup commands. - Some dongles simply show up as if it was a wired connection and hence no further programming or change of settings are needed. — I will attach some instructions as to setting up a USB dongle on raspberry pi.
c) You need to check if your provider has fixed or dynamic addressing. Chances are like most providers out there it is dynamic, which creates additional challenges.
d) Whilst some people out there will now say “IP addressing is not a problem as you are only sending from drone” …this is not the case as I haven’t been able to use UDP protocol over LTE (I’m using TCP instead which requires the exact IP address) and you also find you may need to SSH into raspberry pi which also requires the exact IP address.
e) If you find you can’t get a fixed IP address from your mobile broadband provider (like it is the case here in Australia) you’ll need to create a “network tunnel” over the network.
As @anon31534460 has already mentioned, it is possible to control Navio2 through the cellular network just like within a local Wi-Fi network. You just need to make your Navio2 accessible for the ground control station. This can be done either by getting a static IP by contacting your mobile Internet provider or by setting up a VPN, for instance.
