Does the Tower APP adjust the altitude automatically for ground elevation changes? I live in the mountains and this would be very useful.
Tower APP
- Thread starter fast7
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interesting question
I would have to assume its calculating altitude from the ground where autopilot initializes
I say that because I never make altitude adjustments location to location
I would have to assume its calculating altitude from the ground where autopilot initializes
I say that because I never make altitude adjustments location to location
Flew a mission on tower today, full auto take off and land. When the copter landed, it motored down as usual and then went crazy. Like a glitch or something. It lasted about 30 seconds and then shut down like normal.
Is loiter used to fly by controller in tower or is it something else. Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks, Kyle
Is loiter used to fly by controller in tower or is it something else. Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks, Kyle
It does not. Everything in Tower is based on the altitude it took off from. You can adjust the altitude of each way point in the plan.
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The altitude referenced by the solo is always the altitude above (or below) the point you armed for takeoff. It doesn't matter what app you use, or if you use no app at all.
If you create an auto mission using the Tower application, that altitude will be as described above, in reference to the takeoff point altitude. In other words, if you take off, climb to 50ft, then try to fly over a 150ft hill, it will smash into the terrain. You would need to adjust the altitude as part of the mission plan's waypoints when you are building the mission. That means you need to be familiar with the terrain. There are no topo maps in Tower you can use to plan this out.
If you create an auto mission using Mission Planner on a windows PC, you can do a few things to help with this situation. First, Mission Planner has topo maps, which are very handy. Mission Planner also has terrain elevation awareness. So you can check the little box, and as you add waypoints, it will automatically adjust the new waypoint altitude to be the prior waypoint altitude +/- the difference in terrain elevation. If you first waypoint was 50ft, and your next waypoint is on a hill top that is 100ft higher in elevation, the new waypoint will automatically be 150 ft. This is all in the mission planning and waypoint altitudes. None of this is the Pixhawk or companion computer on the solo being aware of the terrain and automatically following it. The solo will go to whatever altitude the waypoint says to go to.
On board terrain awareness and terrain following is new feature of Arducopter in version 3.4, which does not work on the solo yet. So us DIY folks with Pixhawks on custom built multiroters can do it. Arduplane also has it for fixed wing drones. With terrain following on, it will maintain altitude above ground as the terrain changes. It is available in auto mode, guided mode (what solo uses for smart shots), RTL, and Land modes. It's very cool.
If you create an auto mission using the Tower application, that altitude will be as described above, in reference to the takeoff point altitude. In other words, if you take off, climb to 50ft, then try to fly over a 150ft hill, it will smash into the terrain. You would need to adjust the altitude as part of the mission plan's waypoints when you are building the mission. That means you need to be familiar with the terrain. There are no topo maps in Tower you can use to plan this out.
If you create an auto mission using Mission Planner on a windows PC, you can do a few things to help with this situation. First, Mission Planner has topo maps, which are very handy. Mission Planner also has terrain elevation awareness. So you can check the little box, and as you add waypoints, it will automatically adjust the new waypoint altitude to be the prior waypoint altitude +/- the difference in terrain elevation. If you first waypoint was 50ft, and your next waypoint is on a hill top that is 100ft higher in elevation, the new waypoint will automatically be 150 ft. This is all in the mission planning and waypoint altitudes. None of this is the Pixhawk or companion computer on the solo being aware of the terrain and automatically following it. The solo will go to whatever altitude the waypoint says to go to.
On board terrain awareness and terrain following is new feature of Arducopter in version 3.4, which does not work on the solo yet. So us DIY folks with Pixhawks on custom built multiroters can do it. Arduplane also has it for fixed wing drones. With terrain following on, it will maintain altitude above ground as the terrain changes. It is available in auto mode, guided mode (what solo uses for smart shots), RTL, and Land modes. It's very cool.
I conduct survey missions with high terrain variation. As method to build terrain hugging survey missions, I use using Mission Planner - MP (by Michael Osborne). MP is great in sense that one can import custom elevation models (else it uses the standard elevation model used by Google Earth). Once the mission is built in MP, I connect my 3DR Solo to my computer and transfer it to my 3DR Solo. Once the mission is transferred to my Solo, I open Tower, connect, load the mission and save the mission as a Tower mission file. Note: a) When building a mission in MP, make sure you tick the box that 'Verifies height'; this builds the mission so that all waypoints are set at height above terrain elevation. and b) always use the same Home take-off location - elevation as generated in MP.
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