I’m currently constructing my own portable ground station to control my Navio2 projects. I will come back with pictures as soon as possible.
The idea
The setup is based on two Rpi 3 each connected to a Raspberry 7" touch screen networked with a small AP and installed in a small Peli case. For manual control I have constructed my own joystick setup with buttons to control flightmodes etc and pot’s to adjust camera angle.
One Rpi is running the latest Qgroundcontrol for flightplanning and telemetry display. Qgroundcontrol on a Rpi3? Yes, it’s possible with Android! I can write a howto on how it’s possible if there is any interest. I’ve only done bench testing so far, but it looks promising. It even works with the built in videolink player and the Rpi camera straight out of the box. But I’m not going to use that feature:
My next goal is to use the second Rpi in the system for FPV and MAVproxy. I’m using MAVproxy to enable my joystick for manual control and to setup the flight mode buttons, this part of the system is working and running on Jessie-Lite without X windows. Now comes the tricky part I haven’t figured out yet: I want to play the gstreamer stream from the Navio without using X windows. After some google’ing I have understood that I’ts possible (I think), but I haven’t figured out how to configure the pipeline yet. Any input on this topic would be helpful!
Now I’m just using wifi for communications, I want to have a long range system som 4G is the way to go when the rest of the system is working.
In parallel to this project om also building a custom quad platform. But to save some crash and burn’s I’m going to assemble a rover platform for field testing of the system. I’m especially nervous about the MAVproxy / joystick part. Hopefully I have time to begin testing in a couple of weeks. I also have to figure out how I’m going to power the system.
Alex
