Gimbal control

Post Reply
spagoziak
Posts: 171
Joined: Thu Jan 20, 2011 1:18 am

Gimbal control

Post by spagoziak »

Alex, is it possible to add manual RC control to the gimbal servos?

Here's what I would like to do:
Separate from the flight receiver, I will have a 2nd receiver operated by a 2nd person. They'll be seeing through a camera mounted on a gimbal. I would like to use MWC stabilization to mitigate jerks and twitches from flight, but still be able to have that person manually tilt the gimbal up/down/etc to change camera views. When the stick is returned to center, the pitch/roll of that servo would stop. Sort of like a jog feature, with the gimbal smoothing built in.

Is something like this possible?

spag

Alexinparis
Posts: 1630
Joined: Wed Jan 19, 2011 9:07 pm

Re: Gimbal control

Post by Alexinparis »

Hi Spag,

It's already possible.
About the gimbal, there is 3 functional things:

1) the PITCH/ROLL stab is activated via a define statement

2) the servo output of PITCH/ROLL stab is activated via the CAM STAB checkbox function (not activated by default, you have to check the according white boxes, or all if you want to activate it permanently)

3) The RC channels 7&8 (CAM PITCH / CAM ROLL) are superposed (mixed by multiwii) with the PITCH/ROLL stab signal.

You could use a second receiver connected only to channel 7&8 (and/or AUX2 to switch the stab on/off) to do what you want. You need a mega board for this.

Alex

User avatar
Hamburger
Posts: 2578
Joined: Tue Mar 01, 2011 2:14 pm
Location: air
Contact:

Re: Gimbal control

Post by Hamburger »

spag,

two receiivers attached to one MultiWii?
You want the inputs to control movement instead of position? Is that it? first order instead of zero order? If desired, how would the operator force a return to level position?

spagoziak
Posts: 171
Joined: Thu Jan 20, 2011 1:18 am

Re: Gimbal control

Post by spagoziak »

Hamburger wrote:spag,

two receiivers attached to one MultiWii?
You want the inputs to control movement instead of position? Is that it? first order instead of zero order? If desired, how would the operator force a return to level position?


Sorta, but not quite! One operator would pilot the MWC as normal, via FPV. The 2nd operator would control a camera gimbal and the camera shutter (and maybe zoom, etc, if I can find a suitable controller for that sort of thing).

So Alex... I'm not sure I understood your reply 100%. With a mega, I can have a pitch and a roll channel assigned to a gimbal, where the MWC will stabilize those channels, even if they're receiving rate adjustments from a gimbal pitch & gimbal roll input on the board? I'm thinking of it behaving like our ACC does with the MWC--the gyros are absorbing turbulence (vibrations, in the gimbal's case) and adjusting for it constantly. Still the pilot can control the attitude of the MWC, but the effects of momentarily rough air are mitigated by the adjustments commanded by the controller. Does the gimbal function you speak of operate in the same way, where smoothing and independent control of the gimbal coexist?

Alexinparis
Posts: 1630
Joined: Wed Jan 19, 2011 9:07 pm

Re: Gimbal control

Post by Alexinparis »

With a mega, I can have a pitch and a roll channel assigned to a gimbal, where the MWC will stabilize those channels, even if they're receiving rate adjustments from a gimbal pitch & gimbal roll input on the board?


yes, it's exactly like this description.

spagoziak
Posts: 171
Joined: Thu Jan 20, 2011 1:18 am

Re: Gimbal control

Post by spagoziak »

Alexinparis wrote:
With a mega, I can have a pitch and a roll channel assigned to a gimbal, where the MWC will stabilize those channels, even if they're receiving rate adjustments from a gimbal pitch & gimbal roll input on the board?


yes, it's exactly like this description.


That is marvelous! I was hoping so.. it makes the job of camera operator so much easier if they can point the camera at a thing with their control over pitch and roll (from their transmitter) and still have MWC stabilize it against wind and such. Merci beaucoup!

User avatar
UndCon
Posts: 293
Joined: Mon Feb 21, 2011 2:10 pm

Re: Gimbal control

Post by UndCon »

This is really good - I wanted to go for this setup a while ago but I decided not to as it requires a camera operator and 2 FPV systems.

//UndCon

Post Reply