Anonymous innovative flight control open source ground station-NGroundStation
1. The original intention and download link of the ground station open source:
Anonymous Innovative Flight Control Open Source Flight Control Ground Station is a multi-function PC software specially developed by Wuming Brother for self-developed flight control developers and electronic enthusiasts. The ground station functions include: flight control status display, data waveforms, and parameters Commonly used for debugging, virtual remote control, flight control sensor calibration serial port assistant, etc. The original intention of developing this ground station is to facilitate efficient learning and debugging.
When beginners are learning drone flight control algorithms and choosing a ground station, the ground station designed by individual niche developers has its own advantages and disadvantages in function and performance, and cannot be compatible with commonly used functions. The open source ground station for APM/PX4 The functions of MP and QGC are complex, and many redundant functions are not available. Developers need to transplant and tailor the Mavlink protocol to adapt to their own flight controllers. This leads to developers often worrying about choosing a suitable ground station for compatibility. The home ground station takes a certain amount of effort.
Considering that there is currently no open source flight control ground station software code open source for everyone to learn from, in order to be able to develop simple and efficient ground station software to meet their needs for beginners, the unknown boy chose to use the QT development platform, based on C++ This ground station software was developed with a graphical user interface. The entire project code frame is clear, each functional module is individually packaged, and the comments are detailed, so that beginners with certain programming experience can understand the entire ground station software operation logic at a glance, and can be based on our open source The ground station software undergoes secondary development, and more functions will be launched in the follow-up. The ground station software will continue to be updated. Public betas are welcome. As long as you are for the construction of the entire open source ecosystem, it does not matter if you criticize and correct. Let's introduce the functions of this ground station in turn.
Unnamed ground station download:
http://www.nameless.tech/download.html
https://download.csdn.net/download/u011992534/12263480
Open source ground station NGroundStation tutorial: https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1JE411c7vU?from=search&seid=4801164549946953127
Anonymous innovation open source ground station exchange QQ group: 465082224, 540707961
The download link of the open source code of the unnamed ground station is at the end of the article
Second, the use of open source ground stations
2.1. Main interface introduction and serial port configuration
Unnamed ground station release adopts installation-free method. After downloading the ground station from the official website, users can directly unzip and click NGroundStation.exe to run. The dependent library file with the suffix of .dll under the same path folder cannot be deleted at will, otherwise click Runtime , It will report missing xxx.dll file.
After the user opens the ground station, the user enters the following main interface. The navigation bar has an introduction to the anonymous innovation team and software usage help. The main interface has various functional modules. The first step is to click to configure the serial port:
After clicking, the software will automatically search for the serial device available on the current computer (USB to TTL device, USB virtual serial port VCP, RS232/485, etc.). If there is no available device on the system, the software will prompt the interface as follows, please check your computer at this time There are related serial peripheral devices or check whether the device manager has corresponding peripheral drivers.
The software will automatically search for the currently available serial device, and the serial number searched out is the device number of the corresponding peripheral. When there are multiple serial devices, you need to check the serial port that needs to be connected. The common baud rate can be selected through the pull-down of the baud rate setting line. At the same time, if you need to debug other unconventional devices, you can also manually enter any baud rate. After the manual input is completed, please click the computer enter key to confirm the input, do not click Enter to exit directly is invalid input. After setting the serial device, exit the setting interface. Click to open the serial port on the main interface and start working after the ground station analyzes the data.
Flight control status, data waveform, parameter debugging, virtual remote control, and flight control calibration functions are all based on the normal analysis of flight control data by the ground station. Therefore, when the above function interface cannot be used normally, please check back the serial port configuration and whether the serial port is configured. Already opened/occupied.
2.2. Flight control status display
The flight control status display interface is divided into modules such as basic flight control status, compass and speed, heading and attitude instrument, IMU data, remote control data, observation sensor data, and attitude angle curve. Users can visually observe the common status of drones in real time through the ground station. The user can understand the various parameters of the drone according to the status prompt.
2.3 Data waveform display
The data waveform display interface can dynamically observe the data waveform curve of the key states of the UAV, such as analyzing various sensor data, attitude data, inertial navigation data, control instructions and other data, and compare flight control algorithm performance, filter parameter setting, and sudden It is very practical in the process of fault analysis. The Wuming Innovation Ground Station reserves 6 sets of user data channels for customers to send data by themselves. The data waveform supports import/export, and the file name is computer system time accurate to S. The exported csv format data can be easily processed and analyzed with numerical processing software such as Matlab, Origin, etc.
2.4, parameter debugging
During the learning process, self-developed flight controller developers need to adjust the PID parameters of the flight controller in combination with different power equipment to ensure that the UAV has stable flight performance. The key parameter is the attitude inner loop-angular velocity loop parameters. The main work is Set the PID parameters of the angular velocity loop, the main PD, and the auxiliary integral parameter I. After the parameter debugging interface, each parameter box is 0. Click to read the parameter first. The ground station will send the parameter acquisition command to the flight controller. After the ground station obtains the parameters sent by the flight controller, it will refresh the UI interface and display the current internal flight controller. Parameters, when you need to adjust the parameters, manually enter the setting parameters in the corresponding parameter box. After you click to write the parameters, the flight controller will save the parameters in FLASH/EEPROM, and the flight controller will automatically read from FLASH/EEPROM when it is powered on. Parameter value. In the same way, the process of setting other parameters of the flight control is the same, read first, and click write after changing. When the user wants to restore the default initial parameters, click to restore the default parameters. When the user writes and restores the setting parameters, the flight controller will return a response to whether the operation is successful and display the write status to the ground station.
2.5, virtual remote control
The virtual remote control interface simulates 8-channel double-circuit Chinese remote control data. By default, 1-8 channels of data are sent in the form of the left-hand throttle. This function can unlock the locked motor and test the UAV's ESC stroke without the remote control. If you want to use this function in actual flight, you need to ensure that all data transmission modules communicate reliably under current practical conditions. When the ground station sends data, it receives the normal return data of the flight control analysis data, and calculates the success rate of communication. The ground station sends the remote control data every 20ms, and the flight control terminal responds once within 20ms, and the communication is normal. If the response frequency of the flight control terminal is less than 50HZ, it may actually cause no abnormal communication, but the success rate of the ground station acquisition is less than 100%. At the same time, the flight command control function is designed, which is to control the displacement direction and distance of the UAV space through commands.
2.6 Flight control calibration
The first step to start the flight control is sensor calibration. Open the flight control calibration interface. There are four calibration operations related to sensors. Among them, gyroscope calibration and rack level calibration do not require manual operation of the aircraft. Keep the drone stationary and horizontal. Click the calibration button to proceed automatically. The calibration of the gyroscope by the aircraft is automatically performed every time the flight controller is powered on, that is, after the temperature of the flight controller IMU rises to 50℃, if the aircraft remains stationary at this time, the gyroscope will automatically calibrate the offset, and the ground station will also be added To manually calibrate the gyroscope offset, click to start calibrating the gyroscope, and the flight controller will automatically calibrate the gyroscope zero offset again.
The flight control acceleration calibration adopts the 6-sided calibration method consistent with APM/PX4. Firstly, click the acceleration calibration to enter, and then click the corresponding surface button, each side will prompt how to place the aircraft. After the 6-sided data is collected, the flight controller will calculate the calibration parameters and send them to the ground station.
The magnetometer calibration adopts the ellipsoid fitting method, which actually needs to collect the data of 36 corner points in 3 planes. The flight controller's own display will prompt how to place and rotate each side. The display shows the data collection status of each corner point. , After all the corner points of the three faces are collected, the calibration parameters will be calculated and sent to the ground station.
The main purpose of the frame level calibration is to deal with the angle error between the flight controller installed on the frame and the horizontal plane, so it needs to be operated with a level gauge. In practice, after the flight controller is installed on the frame, first calibrate the accelerometer, and then Place the level meter on the plane where the rack is located, adjust the rack feet so that the bubble of the level meter is centered, and then perform the rack level calibration operation.
Other keystrokes to obtain calibration parameters, exit the current calibration, etc. will not be repeated. In all the above calibrations, except for the magnetometer, the others require the temperature control system to work stably, so it is best to wait for the temperature to reach 50° and stabilize before starting the gyroscope , Acceleration, frame level calibration operation. The anonymous flight controller retains the direct calibration method of the remote controller for the flight controller calibration, so the user can flexibly determine according to the actual scene. The remote controller calibration sensor video tutorial is as follows.
*1, acceleration calibration tutorial: https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1it411k7CJ?from=search&seid=255111440291059640
2. Magnetometer calibration: https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1it411k7CC?from=search&seid=15429067159432134560
3. Rack level calibration: https://www.bilibili.com/video/BV1L4411E7j2?from=search&seid=14438186151189674967
2.7, basic transceiver
The ground station retains the function of the ordinary serial port debugging assistant, which is separate from the above functions. It can be used as an ordinary serial port debugging assistant. Data is sent and received in text/hexadecimal system, automatically sent at regular intervals, and multiple commands sent.
3. Open source ground station software code
3.1 QT development environment
Link: https://pan.baidu.com/s/1R__jn921zaPGsYB2VQV3mQ extraction code: hgo7
3.2 Third-party support package, self-search online tutorial installation
QWT6.1.3：https://qwt.sourceforge.io/
Link: https://pan.baidu.com/s/1W2UUki_e73pQ7X-7qgs5Fw Extraction code: x1aj
QUC custom control: http://www.qtcontrol.cn/
Link: https://pan.baidu.com/s/1s9gpVaawuqrKXAXMFsIvWQ Extraction code: dyxq
3.3 Source code download of Anonymous Ground Station
Github download link: https://github.com/wustyuyi/NGroundStation
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