Using tower survey. What to do for long flights?

[NWMOPoppers]

Hello all! New to flying, not new to technology. Anyway, I'm using tower to survey fields for agricultural use. Quite often in this area, I run into fields too big to fly with a single battery. I haven't been able to figure out how to restart a mission I have pause after switching the battery on the solo. Am a going to have to split these fields up into smaller, one battery surveys? Am I missing something somewhere else? Thanks in advance.

 

[nuggetz]

I'm pretty sure you're going to have to use separate missions because tower will always go to first waypoint in a mission. Use the time estimate as a rough guide when building missions and align that with the flight times you are getting from your batteries.


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[NWMOPoppers]

That's what I was afraid of...

 

[Jubalr]

One of the things on my list to try when I get time; Use the'Pause' in Tower to pause the mission. At that point it is in Fly mode and fly it back to me and do a Hot-Swap on the battery. Then fly it back close to the point I Paused and try to resume the mission. Not sure if it will work, but something to try.

 

[NWMOPoppers]

One of the things on my list to try when I get time; Use the'Pause' in Tower to pause the mission. At that point it is in Fly mode and fly it back to me and do a Hot-Swap on the battery. Then fly it back close to the point I Paused and try to resume the mission. Not sure if it will work, but something to try.

I tried that. It restarted from the beginning.

 

[LarryF]

I use Mission Planner (MP) for long missions. MP lets you create one large survey mission, then tell it how many times to break it into. It will automatically break the long mission into multiple missions, adding a stop camera trigger, RTH, takeoff, start camera tgrigger, and continue to the next waypoint at each break.

I thought I read where MP was supposed to know when you landed (after RTH) and automatically pickup where you left off (next takeoff) the next time you go into Auto. MP uses multiple "JUMP" commands at the begging to do this. However, I never got this part working. Instead, I note the various waypoint numbers for the JUMP commands (which are also the same as the part of the mission you want to fly). After starting the motors, I can us MP to go into Auto and then tell it to "go to" that next JUMP waypoint, which will then continue the mission after where I last landed at.

When creating the mission, you can see the estimated time the mission will take. You can then break the mission into parts, depending how long you want each part to fly. For example, you can break a 50 minute mission (survey) into 5 10-minute parts.

 

[franknitty69]

sadly, in tower, you have to divide your mission up into smaller sections manually.

coming soon (i have no idea when) is the ability to resume a mission in tower.

 

[Dronie]

sadly, in tower, you have to divide your mission up into smaller sections manually.

coming soon (i have no idea when) is the ability to resume a mission in tower.

That would be nice. Another great feature in Tower would be a measure tool so that you know the distances of some of your flight lines, this could help determine where to break the missions up.

Thanks,

 

[gunford]

I was out doing a job yesterday and Tower froze up. Couldn't even fly a mission. Used mission planner but I was hoping Tower would trigger the camera.

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[w0rcy]

I am also having Tower freeze up when I fly missions with it, but once my Solo is in auto mode, it flies the mission even without Tower running, as the program is uploaded to the Solo. My controller is still in contact with Solo, so it doesn't do RTL, but Tower just won't keep running. Is it known why this is?

 

[w0rcy]

On the point of multiple flights, I have done this in Mission Planner:
1. Draw the whole mission with one big polygon, then save mission with takeoff, RTL, whatever you use
2. Figure out how far it can go on one flight, then delete all waypoints afterward, up to the landing sequence, then save to Mission1
3. Reload original mission file, then delete waypoints we have already done, then all waypoints beyond what can be covered in 2nd flight. Save to Mission2
4. Repeat #3 until mission is complete.

I know this isn't the optimal way to do this, but it is better than drawing each flight as a separate mission. I have tried to setup the full mission in Mission Planner, and have it break the missions up, and it uses jump to change where it starts, but that never works the way I think I will. I am still experimenting with jump to see if I can figure it out. Anyone have some clues?

@franknitty69: I have used your script for triggering the the camera and it works great. I did not have a file of that name previously, so should I just delete that file when the time comes for a new firmware update?

 

[franknitty69]

On the point of multiple flights, I have done this in Mission Planner:
1. Draw the whole mission with one big polygon, then save mission with takeoff, RTL, whatever you use
2. Figure out how far it can go on one flight, then delete all waypoints afterward, up to the landing sequence, then save to Mission1
3. Reload original mission file, then delete waypoints we have already done, then all waypoints beyond what can be covered in 2nd flight. Save to Mission2
4. Repeat #3 until mission is complete.

I know this isn't the optimal way to do this, but it is better than drawing each flight as a separate mission. I have tried to setup the full mission in Mission Planner, and have it break the missions up, and it uses jump to change where it starts, but that never works the way I think I will. I am still experimenting with jump to see if I can figure it out. Anyone have some clues?

@franknitty69: I have used your script for triggering the the camera and it works great. I did not have a file of that name previously, so should I just delete that file when the time comes for a new firmware update?

you need to put the original back before you update. deleting it won't work (i've tried it). if you don't have the original, do a factory update first, then update solo to the latest version. in the latest version triggering the gopro in missions work fine.

the way updates work, is it will not not update files that have been modified.

as far as issues with tower, i'm not sure. i'm using beta tower and beta 3dr services on a tab s without any issues.

 

[w0rcy]

Doing factory reset, then update did work. Just updating, I was not able to get it to work without your file. Thanks.

I am guessing that the do_jump command only jumps backward, so I cannot use it for skipping the previously completed waypoints. @Jubalr mentioned hot_swapping batteries. I could do that on Pixhawk, but i dont know how to do that on Solo. Is it possible?

 

[LarryF]

Breaking up a long mission in MP and using the JUMP command works great. Fly part 1 and let it land. Change battery and set your "Switch to WP" option to WP2 (the 2nd Jump). I manually take off and go into AUTO, then execute the "Switch to WP" option. The mission will now to JUMP to the 2nd part of the mission and land again when done. Change batteries, repeat the above but Switch to WP 3. Repeat for each part of the mission - just keep changing the "Switch to WP" option for the part of the mission your on. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, etc.

 

[w0rcy]

This sounds like it would well. Where do you set the "Switch to WP" option, in the mission or in the APM parameters? I'm just not finding where that is.

 

[LarryF]

The "Switch to WP", or whatever they call it, is in MP under the "Actions" tab. See the below attachment. After the first segment of your mission and you've landed and changed batteries, go to the "Actions" tab in MP then #1 - change the WP to the next segment of your mission (this will match the proper JUMP waypoint in your mission), manually takeoff and #2 - press the "Auto" button to start your mission over, when Solo gets near the proper takeoff altitude, press #3 - press the "Set WP" button to start the 2nd (and 3rd, etc.) segment of the mission.

The first waypoint of a multi-segment mission is a JUMP command to jump to the first segment of your mission. After you manually takeoff and then press the "Auto" button, your mission starts over at the first waypoint of the first segment, which is a takeoff command. You already took-off, so the mission is waiting for Solo to get to the proper altitude (as specified in the takeoff waypoint) before continuing. When Solo gets near to the takeoff altitude, you press the "Set WP" button (you already had "set" the WP to the proper segment). The mission will then Jump to that segment of the mission and continue where you left off before.

 

[w0rcy]

Thanks for the explanation. I didn't even know that could be done. I'm excited to do this.

 

[w0rcy]

As a follow up on this, I did it and it works great. It is worth saying that (0 Home) for the waypoint is the first waypoint-- the first "jump" command. Waypoint "1" is the second "jump" command. Thanks for your help, LarryF. I would not have figured this out myself.