RMRC Antenna Tracker used with 3DR Solo and Mission Planner

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I wanted to dust off the antenna tracker that I put together last year for my 3DR Pixhawk DIY multirotors. Initially, I tried to have a ground-based Pixhawk control the antenna servos, and was unsuccessful, and so it sat in the shop for a year.
I've been using my Solo quite a bit the last few months. It works great with Mission Planner and all the capabilities that come with it. While researching how to get the antenna tracker working, I noticed that there is an alternate way to drive the servos, using a Pololu Maestro servo controller and taking pitch and pan commands directly from Mission Planner.
In this setup I'm using a 2.4GHz L-Com Spatial Diversity antenna with a published gain of 11 dBi (Model RE11DS-SM) from readymaderc.com . The ImmersionRC 5.8GHz receiver also shown, was not hooked up to anything for this project.
As you watch the video you can see I initially had some difficulty getting the antenna tracker to do what I was expecting it to do. I finally realized I neglected to tell Mission Planner where the tracker was on the map. Once I did that everything worked perfectly. I guess I was feeling a bit rushed, since I was losing daylight quickly.
You may notice a little latency in how quickly the antenna tracker responds to the aircraft location. This is not an issue with the aircraft more than a few dozen meters away from the tracker. Also you might notice that the tracker has trouble when I fly almost directly overhead. This is probably due to the location I identified on the map doesn't quite match up with where the tripod was actually placed. This is not an issue, since at close range the L-Com antenna has large side lobes, and the antenna doesn't need to be pointed directly at the aircraft.
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I have the same one but use it for my 900MHz and 5.8Mhz FPV DIY stuff. I little extra hassle setting everything up. I love Mission Planner. I wonder what the signal loss is on cable that long though. Also the tracker needs to point north with the servos centered so that it tracks properly without having to use the sliders. The maestro needs to be set up just right on the computer with end points and how sensitive it is to movement. About pulled my hair out initially setting up my Maestro. Nice job!
 
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Thanks David,
I'm aware that my sliders would be centered if the antenna were pointing North. Problem is when flying at home the front of my house points South, hence the need to have the pan slider almost all the way to the left side. That being said if set up correctly, it only takes a minute to align everything.
I actually built the AT for a long-range fixed wing project with a 900MHz antenna from L-Com. I basically pulled the 900 MHz antenna and added the 2.4 GHz one. I also have some circularly polarized 2.4GHz antennas I'm going to try out. With the short legs of most multirotors the AT just isn't really needed. Was nice to see it work though. I'll bring it out to my usual flying field when it warms up (just for fun).


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I wanted to dust off the antenna tracker that I put together last year for my 3DR Pixhawk DIY multirotors. Initially, I tried to have a ground-based Pixhawk control the antenna servos, and was unsuccessful, and so it sat in the shop for a year.
I've been using my Solo quite a bit the last few months. It works great with Mission Planner and all the capabilities that come with it. While researching how to get the antenna tracker working, I noticed that there is an alternate way to drive the servos, using a Pololu Maestro servo controller and taking pitch and pan commands directly from Mission Planner.
In this setup I'm using a 2.4GHz L-Com Spatial Diversity antenna with a published gain of 11 dBi (Model RE11DS-SM) from readymaderc.com . The ImmersionRC 5.8GHz receiver also shown, was not hooked up to anything for this project.
As you watch the video you can see I initially had some difficulty getting the antenna tracker to do what I was expecting it to do. I finally realized I neglected to tell Mission Planner where the tracker was on the map. Once I did that everything worked perfectly. I guess I was feeling a bit rushed, since I was losing daylight quickly.
You may notice a little latency in how quickly the antenna tracker responds to the aircraft location. This is not an issue with the aircraft more than a few dozen meters away from the tracker. Also you might notice that the tracker has trouble when I fly almost directly overhead. This is probably due to the location I identified on the map doesn't quite match up with where the tripod was actually placed. This is not an issue, since at close range the L-Com antenna has large side lobes, and the antenna doesn't need to be pointed directly at the aircraft.
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Fun Stuff.
 
You know, with a plastic dome and a cylindrical antenna, that thing would look just like a CIWS in operation. :p
 

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