BeagleBone Blue FC with Arduipilot

General Discussion
1

Hi Guys,
I am trying to setup Ardupilot FC using BBB following this article.

This arducopter service (sudo nano /lib/systemd/system/arduplane.service) requires an IP address to connect using udp.
I am able to connect my laptop to BBB access point and find out my ip which I defined in the arducopter service file.
Question is:
Is there a way to not define a particular IP and be able to connect through a different laptop/tablet?

What is the wifi telemetry range I am going to get when connected to BB access point in an open field?

Thanks
Z

2

Hello,

There are some general topics located at a particular site:

This may help as a starter…

and…

You can use this idea to port the Arduplane to the BBBlue:

git clone --recursive https://github.com/ArduPilot/ardupilot
sudo apt install python3 python3-dev python3-lxml g++ make pkg-config python3-pip

python3 -m pip install -U future # If you need to use sudo b/c of how ardupilot is "altered" around root privileges, then try that too.

cd ardupilot
python3 waf configure --board blue --rsync-dest root@192.168.7.2:
cd board/blue/
python3 ../../waf --target bin/arducopter --upload

Yes to your question. You can define your access point IP Address w/ a file on the BBBlue. Look at the imfatant repo. on github for answers to this idea.

Or…you can just do this idea:

TELEM1="-C /dev/ttyS1"
TELEM2="-A udp:<HOST IP address>:14550"
GPS="-B /dev/ttyS2"
RANGER="-F /dev/ttyS5"

You can put that file in any folder really but /etc/default/ardupilot is the file used in the imfatant repo.

Also…it should connect automatically when you restart MP or another form of ground control.

Seth

P.S. I do not know how many feet or yards or meters you will be able to use to connect on the BBBlue.

I use the 5GHz on the radio instead of the WiFi on the BBBlue. I hope this answers some questions.

3

Neat…they updated their site!

Seth

4

Is it something like this?

5

Seth,
Thanks for the reply.
Yes I can connect to BBB access point. Received IP I also defined in arducopter service. This gives me connectivity to MP using udp.
I was looking for a way to not having to define a target ip. This would give me some flexibility to connect using a mobile or tablet, whatever is handy at the time.

This is like having a pixracer with esp32 access point and anyone is able to connect to MP if wifi pwd is known.

Z

6

Hello @Zeusex ,

Seth here. I am trying to under here what can be gained…

  1. The initial connection to MP is done only for configuration and calibrations.
  2. You will not need that IP Address any longer once using a TX/RX.

Seth

P.S. At least, this is what I thought. I could be wrong but I think the ardupilot source is set up to handle config. and calibrations from target to host and vice versa and I really thought that was the only reason one would need that particular IP Address initially.

7

I solved my problem and here is how.
I connected a RPi to BBB access point. In services, I defined IP (192.168.8.100) of RPI.
Then ran on RPi mavp2p

./mavp2p udps:192.168.8.100:14550 udpc:192.168.8.128:14550

(192.168.8.128 is of laptop)

This does solve the issue but the question is why couldn’t I do the same without a RPi?

8

Seth,
Yes you are right but one would need a laptop in the field if WPs are to be modified/corrected.

Today I tried at my friend’s place his pixhawk. He could simply broadcast RPi udp using mavp2p. The command didn’t involve my ip connected to his network and still my laptop could connect to his drone.

1 Like
9

Does your laptop have avahi or mDNS?

Run avahi-browse -a on your laptop to discover the address. Many applications will let you use beaglebone.local as the address on a (W)LAN.

1 Like
10

Hi Jason
I went down the path of RPi since the laptop has windows.
I could run mavp2p on BBB but laptop couldn’t connect to MP.
After I defined IP of RPi in arducopter services, I ran mavp2p on RPi. Upon then laptop succeeded.