Software Wish List

Please use the Discussion tab at the top of the page, as appropriate

Ground Station Suggestions

• Path interpreter
• Divide the flight plan into 3 separate files (Jeremy)

  Takeoff/Landing - flight plan blocks describing the complex routines and using altitudes and waypoints from the User file

  Generic - a file that users should never need to edit, containing circles, rectangles, figure-8's, and surveys that appear on command when GCS buttons are pressed. Altitude/locations could be relative to the User file

  User - Here we can specify fixed or dynamic Home point and add complex routines or simply save certain basic routines.

Airborne Software Suggestions

Navigation

• Flight plan stage sensing

  Carrot should continue past the waypoint toward the next point, but the point should not be officially acknowledged until the plane has passed it. This way we can have smooth, intelligent navigation while still considering waypoint triggers such as still-photo, sensor drop, or throttle off.

Other

• Revise autopilot modes (Jeremy)
  1. Manual - Should parallel/override all autonomous modes and be displayed together (i.e. Manual/Nav)
  2. Auto1 - Should parallel/override all autonomous modes and be displayed together (maybe rename to "Stabilized")
  3. Armed - Should parallel all autonomous modes - enables throttle PWM signal, stability routines, complete telemetry data and processes the entire flight plan with a throttle of 0%. Can only be enabled by GCS or R/C and can never be re-enabled without a complete power cycle. Automatically enabled by Manual, Auto1, or Takeoff
  4. Kill - should override all autonomous modes, use pitch/roll/throttle settings from the airframe file, and be automatically cancelled for 30 seconds if a manual block/mode change is sent from the GCS. The timeout is important as it may allow the operator to potentially recover the plane autonomously in a situation where Kill mode may be repeatedly triggered such as too far from home
  5. Home - should override all autonomous modes other than Kill and be automatically cancelled for 30 seconds if a manual block/mode change is sent from the GCS. The timeout is important for the same reasons as above.
  6. Ground - should override nothing - The default boot mode. In this mode the throttle is not armed (no PWM signal), there is no stability (servos locked in neutral position), video power is off, and only GPS data is sent. This will aid in lost plane retreival as the servos, modem, and video will not drain the battery.
  7. Takeoff - enables Armed and uses the Takeoff flight plan file and any special airframe gains/trims/payload options as defined in airframe.xml. Enabled only by GPIO or GCS never by R/C or any autonomous trigger.
  8. Nav - should override all autonomous modes for 30 seconds if manually initiated from the GCS, otherwise should override nothing - regular autonomous waypoint navigation using the nav flight plan file(s) - should trigger Takeoff.
  9. Landing - same a Nav but using the Landing flight plan file and airframe gains/trims/payload options as defined in airframe.xml
  10. No GPS - should override nothing - a temporary mode using pitch/roll settings from airframe.xml
  11. No RC - should override nothing - only triggered from Auto1, should either initiate Home mode or switch to the current autonomous mode as defined in airframe.xml. If triggered from manual, No RC should trigger Auto 1 for up to 5 seconds before going autonomous.

• Last known coordinate

  AP should continue to broadcast the last known GPS coordinate in the event of GPS loss. (i.e. upside-down crashed plane should continue to send last known position in case it was out of data range prior to the crash.)