MultiWii

Hello,
I am close to temporally leave Multiwii and move to ArduCopter there i have a feeling the main developers (Alex, EOSBandi, …) are not really present anymore.
Especially for the GPS waypoint features there is no clear agenda on what is coming and when.
manu

There is development happening, just not making its way into the main branch. I personally had wanted to start archiving all of the patches as they appear but figured it is not worth my time.

i had a brief look at ardu copter and while it looks good on the surface, i think you will eventually "paint yourself into a corner" with it. I think multiwii might not look as fancy and have so many features right now, but multiwii is collaborative and open, also the Multi wii serial protocol opens up the doors for many "accesories" which will eventually start appearing and i am sure some of those will be waypoint and navigation boards, similar to EOS bandi's I2C-GPS-Serial code that has been copied onto many different boards.

The ability to add peripherals and add-ons means the developers have more time to make the core software stable, allowing others with their particular interests to build the add-ons.
Give it time and you will see multiwii will be more sucessfull than any other.

Because it is collaborative, it doesnt matter if the main developers take a break for a while, there are many other people doing great things, e.g. NHA's failsafe RTH

Thats just my observation from observing computer systems for the past 25 years e.g. SAP, Syspro, Oracle, Microsoft etc etc. The successful systems focus on a solid core and allow others to provide the "bells and whistles" by providing them with the integration opportunities.

Guys, I just hack into MultiWii 2.2 the navigation

For now, the waypoints are hardcoded, so each new navigation path will require to quickly change the code, recompile and upload ... few seconds of works

Navigation works spot on ... and really only few lines of code added ... MultiWii has already navigation, with RTH .. so all I need to do is to set a new navigation target once hit the 'home'/destination ... mega-multi easy

I'm going to post soon a video on my youTube channel about it (channel elm70)

What I need to add is some radio fail safe .... keeping navigation of radio link is lost, or RTH, if fly was manual ... about this I have ideas ... mainky is up to the used radio (I use cppm from FrSky)

What I may need your help is some idea about making a CLI for enter waypoints without recode every time ... CLI over a serial port ... and some tips about eeprom waypoints storing

For now I like to keep navigation based on relative coordinate, based on location of navigation activation, for be sure to don't send mile & miles away the copter by accident

BTW

ArduCopter and MPNG sucks

MultiWii is way better .. more clean code, ready to fit into ultra cheap 328 chips .. ultra easy to be hacked for do extra stuffs

Tchuss

e_lm_70

I do not know if it is working but the I2C-GPS-NAV claims to be able to hold 15 waypoints.

This module is based on the idea about offloading GPS parsing and calculations from a low powered flight controller processor (AtMega328) and make all data available via the I2C bus.

Beside of GPS data the module also implement waypoints and pos hold functions.
There are 15 Waypoints (#0 is the RTH position), these waypoints can be set via I2C and module gives back the distance and direction towards the active waypoint.
Pos hold can overwrite the active waypoint temporary and then can continue toward the last active waypoint.
waypoints also can be set to the current gps position,

I don't use i2c gps
But for now I use atmega2560 thats has 4 serial and tons of memory

I'm sure it can be done on 328 multiwii board (I did add gps over serial on my cheap multiwii 2.1 in the past)

For me ... i2c gps module ,,, is just a waste, not needed

Everyone is entitled to their opinions, I for one is looking to use SoftSerial with the I2C-GPS for an Antenna tracking system.

softSerial ???

You want a 328 to undersdand rs232 with software support only?

You will run out of memory in no time

Ideally you can make your single serial autoswitching between GUI interface and GPS reading ...

I havr even FrSky support on 328 on MultiWii ... GPS at 9600 is good enough for 4hz gps update

No my friend, I will not. Best of luck with your application.

scanman wrote:Thats just my observation from observing computer systems for the past 25 years e.g. SAP, Syspro, Oracle, Microsoft etc etc. The successful systems focus on a solid core and allow others to provide the "bells and whistles" by providing them with the integration opportunities.

If you think the current state of MultiWii is a "solid core", well, good luck. I'm talking strictly from code point of view, not whether it "works" or not.

MultiWii with GPS waypoints ... here we have it:

I did already use it multiple times, and it is rock solid

The code change basic it is in the video ... ultra simple code change on MW 2.2

Now ... I would appreciate some "help" and "ideas" about making waypoints configurebles ... as well .. which basic feature are interesting in navigation .. like climb, descend .. stop X seconds ... face East for , etc etc

http://youtu.be/FO98kWumnHI

alll wrote:Hello,
I am close to temporally leave Multiwii and move to ArduCopter there i have a feeling the main developers (Alex, EOSBandi, …) are not really present anymore.
Especially for the GPS waypoint features there is no clear agenda on what is coming and when.
manu

Hi,

Did you noticed the yaw control was changed recently to match one of your request ?

EOS told us he is working on a GPS WP solution, that's fine for me even if it takes months

Alexinparis wrote:

alll wrote:Hello,
I am close to temporally leave Multiwii and move to ArduCopter there i have a feeling the main developers (Alex, EOSBandi, …) are not really present anymore.
Especially for the GPS waypoint features there is no clear agenda on what is coming and when.
manu

Hi,

Did you noticed the yaw control was changed recently to match one of your request ?

EOS told us he is working on a GPS WP solution, that's fine for me even if it takes months

I made GPS WP navigation working in few hours ... yes ... for now the WP navigation is hardcoded, but not a big thing, since update the firmware with a new navigation path it is just few minutes of work.

I see that MultiWii 2.2 is mainly ready for GPS WP navigation (there was only 1 bug I had to fix) , what is missing is to configure WP and maybe some "actions" ... maybe it can be reused the same interface/protocol adopted by mission planer ... this will speed up the development. ... or maybe we can make something more smart and way more efficient, in perfect MultiWii style (ArduCopter is a over-done spaghetti code, with bizarre design decision)

On my tests, MultiWii 2.2 in WP navigation is rock solid.

Here are some more details of my work:
http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1974183

Alexinparis wrote:

alll wrote:Hello,
I am close to temporally leave Multiwii and move to ArduCopter there i have a feeling the main developers (Alex, EOSBandi, …) are not really present anymore.
Especially for the GPS waypoint features there is no clear agenda on what is coming and when.
manu

Hi,

Did you noticed the yaw control was changed recently to match one of your request ?

EOS told us he is working on a GPS WP solution, that's fine for me even if it takes months

Hi Alex,

I really appreciate you implemented the yaw change! And all your time spent on this project.
I only find the communication is too "hidden" / "obscure" regarding the future of Multiwii. And i don't know much on the progress of certain implementations of all committers?
I have no problems waiting, but i need to know "IF" it will ever come? Maybe you have a better contact with EOS?
That is why i said "TEMPORALLY" leave...

I would be the most happiest multiwii user with 1 waypoint in the space long. /lat. AND height in meters!
Arm, activate goto point 1, ... vertically climb to given altitude (in meters), navigate to long./lat., hold.

If multiwii can do this, it will be a hitter!

manu

Just a point of view here, we really should have the attitude of FOR BETTER OR WORSE. People love to jump onto a moving bandwagon but do not like to help to get it rolling. Also, if the bandwagon slows, they are ready to jump off.

"HELP" do you mean coding? Then i am not really the right person.
I am always ready to help on a certain topic if you ask me, and i feel i can do it!
If there was a branch / trunk that needs testing i am there to help, no problem with that!
manu

Help is defined in my opinion by the abilities of each individual, for many it may simply means patience.

copterrichie wrote:Help is defined in my opinion by the abilities of each individual, for many it may simply means patience.

Four month ago EOSbandi posted a preview of his mission planner ....
it may be allowed to ask for a estimated time of publishing.

BTW: thanks to all developers, you do a great job

It is reasonable to ask, I am curious also but may be EOS has family or other problems. So if someone else have the skills, I am sure no one will complain if they pick up the ball and run with it.

alll wrote:

Alexinparis wrote:

alll wrote:Hello,
I am close to temporally leave Multiwii and move to ArduCopter there i have a feeling the main developers (Alex, EOSBandi, …) are not really present anymore.
Especially for the GPS waypoint features there is no clear agenda on what is coming and when.
manu

Hi,

Did you noticed the yaw control was changed recently to match one of your request ?

EOS told us he is working on a GPS WP solution, that's fine for me even if it takes months

Hi Alex,

I really appreciate you implemented the yaw change! And all your time spent on this project.
I only find the communication is too "hidden" / "obscure" regarding the future of Multiwii. And i don't know much on the progress of certain implementations of all committers?
I have no problems waiting, but i need to know "IF" it will ever come? Maybe you have a better contact with EOS?
That is why i said "TEMPORALLY" leave...

I would be the most happiest multiwii user with 1 waypoint in the space long. /lat. AND height in meters!
Arm, activate goto point 1, ... vertically climb to given altitude (in meters), navigate to long./lat., hold.

If multiwii can do this, it will be a hitter!

manu

Yes MultiWii 2.2 can do what you ask for !

I feel like people simply ignore my posts, I have even 1 video on my youTube channel (elm70) showing it.

Still, what I did is just prove of concept, hardcoded points/actions ... but ... actually it is already quite manageble to set a navigation path in few minutes ...

Anybody brave enough for testing the navigation hack ?

e_lm_70 wrote:Yes MultiWii 2.2 can do what you ask for !

I feel like people simply ignore my posts, I have even 1 video on my youTube channel (elm70) showing it.

Still, what I did is just prove of concept, hardcoded points/actions ... but ... actually it is already quite manageble to set a navigation path in few minutes ...

Anybody brave enough for testing the navigation hack ?

This is the problem that I have, that being, I can only test in my backyard or city parks. I would have to drive a good distant to do any real testing, so I just sit on the side-lines watching.

I will! Could you guide me step by step?
If it is so simple, i will do it straight away, even if i need to hard-code it.
Thanks

By the way. The mission planner in Baseflight GUI is ready.
Thats not the problem.
I wonder why things take so many time, and coder who do some jobs are ignored

cGiesen wrote:By the way. The mission planner in Baseflight GUI is ready.
Thats not the problem.
I wonder why things take so many time, and coder who do some jobs are ignored

What is Baseflight GUI?
How to get it?
How to setup?

Baseflight GUI based on the MultiWii GUI by EOSBandi
But codinging is going on with main focus on Baseflight in the begining, and later for Harakiri.

The Waypoint Planner is build mainly for Harakiri, but they completely changed the way they gone. They want to do MAVLink
Don't ask my why!
But to adapt it to MWii is still only one or two hours.
But in MWii there is really nothing behind! So I can't test it

http://www.klick-punkte.info/download/b ... htGUI2.zip

I never test it with basic MWii, because I don't have any board any more
But it should work. Perhaps you can do a basic test?

Ignore screens like CLI, GPSPass and Firmware Update. this are Baseflight and Harakiri only!
But until MWii didn't use MSP-Version or something I can see it's MWii and not Baseflight or Harakiri, there is now way for my to hide this screens.
I ask for that more than ones, but thats the same question like waypoint.
Waiting for years.... even for thing with no work

Edit:
by the way, my GUI support up to 8 channel for boxes. But MWii and baseflight are not able to deal with
Only Harakiri can do it.

@cGlesen, is it possible to port the Baseflight GUI over to Eclipse? Reason I ask is, I don't have a windows machine with Visual Studio.

then you don't need github.
My source is, in the moment, for different reasons, only available as ZIP.
It's an windows only app!

But the question is, can it be ported to Eclipse?

no

Thanks for the answer. I agree with Alex, this project really needs to use GNU products.

alll wrote:I will! Could you guide me step by step?
If it is so simple, i will do it straight away, even if i need to hard-code it.
Thanks

Send me by PM your current MultiWii code that you are using (the zip file with all the parts)

And I will send you back the one with navigations, and the tips for define waypoints in the code

cGiesen wrote:Baseflight GUI based on the MultiWii GUI by EOSBandi
But codinging is going on with main focus on Baseflight in the begining, and later for Harakiri.

The Waypoint Planner is build mainly for Harakiri, but they completely changed the way they gone. They want to do MAVLink
Don't ask my why!
But to adapt it to MWii is still only one or two hours.
But in MWii there is really nothing behind! So I can't test it

http://www.klick-punkte.info/download/b ... htGUI2.zip

I never test it with basic MWii, because I don't have any board any more
But it should work. Perhaps you can do a basic test?

Ignore screens like CLI, GPSPass and Firmware Update. this are Baseflight and Harakiri only!
But until MWii didn't use MSP-Version or something I can see it's MWii and not Baseflight or Harakiri, there is now way for my to hide this screens.
I ask for that more than ones, but thats the same question like waypoint.
Waiting for years.... even for thing with no work

Edit:
by the way, my GUI support up to 8 channel for boxes. But MWii and baseflight are not able to deal with
Only Harakiri can do it.

Interesting ... I need to have a look at it

I'm looking for some half baked open source solution ... I don't have time to waste for make a map gui interface for insert view-points

At the moment I'm up for a CLI over one of the serial port, possibly the GPS one.
This is something that I can done in few hours

For now, I'm happy with hardcoded waypoints

copterrichie wrote:Thanks for the answer. I agree with Alex, this project really needs to use GNU products.

Than stop chatter and change MultiWiiConf.

I do it perhaps for more then 8 channels, but this code is still ignored.

I only do programms I like to have for my own.
I'm not interesting in any other things any more......

copterrichie wrote:

e_lm_70 wrote:Yes MultiWii 2.2 can do what you ask for !

I feel like people simply ignore my posts, I have even 1 video on my youTube channel (elm70) showing it.

Still, what I did is just prove of concept, hardcoded points/actions ... but ... actually it is already quite manageble to set a navigation path in few minutes ...

Anybody brave enough for testing the navigation hack ?

This is the problem that I have, that being, I can only test in my backyard or city parks. I would have to drive a good distant to do any real testing, so I just sit on the side-lines watching.

I'm testing on my backyard

Basic tast can be even done without propeller or ... just with board power and checking the 'data' over serial mw gui

My navigation can get disabled by a swith, and be back in manual mode in case of issue ... same like pos-hold or rth ...

There is no risk

The idea is to collect the basic need and the more effective way to implement basic navigation

cGiesen wrote:

copterrichie wrote:Thanks for the answer. I agree with Alex, this project really needs to use GNU products.

Than stop chatter and change MultiWiiConf.

I do it perhaps for more then 8 channels, but this code is still ignored.

I only do programms I like to have for my own.
I'm not interesting in any other things any more......

Well, I am in the same boat, my enhancement (port to Android) for the MultiConf was met with such harsh resistance, I stopped any public talk about it.

Congratulations to the waypoints.
great work

GPS and althold have defects, only when these are resolved, the Waypoint Navigation ok.

APM works great and multiwii with Arducopter GPS code? why not! is OK

On second thought and I hope I am wrong but maybe EOSBandi said screw it as so many others have done. Recapping, I have seen him take lots of abuse.

Rainer wrote:Congratulations to the waypoints.
great work

GPS and althold have defects, only when these are resolved, the Waypoint Navigation ok.

APM works great and multiwii with Arducopter GPS code? why not! is OK

GPS hold and althold does looks rock solid on MultiWii ... for sure not worst then APM or MPNG

Placing APM code in MultiWii .. sound a blasphemy ... APM code is over-engineered (for said it in nice words) ... I would expect something smarter and slimmer inside MultiWii

But ... the work for make nice looking GPS Mapping waypoints GUI ... it is possible a huge work that can put on hold many people on investing time on making something new.
On this aspect ... why not support the Mission Planer as GUI ... still not 100% sure of all the protocols implementations implications ...

copterrichie wrote:On second thought and I hope I am wrong but maybe EOSBandi said screw it as so many others have done. Recapping, I have seen him take lots of abuse.

Who is EOSBandi ?

He is still active on this forum ?

Open source ... should not be a combine effort of multiple peoples ?

Why we should be dependent on a single person ?

EOS Bandi has done great here in GPS.
in an open soures project should not be dependent on a person everything.
  there are many people who also can use this.
only should be accepted.
Multiwii is good, it has to be better, it can only create the community.
MAV-link projects are everywhere. why not multiwii so successful.
Mav-link is better than expensive flight control because Multiwii must go

From my observation window, I don't see the dependency upon EOS Bandi, some disorganization in getting modifications or patches into the main distribution true. Work is being done by many.

Alexinparis wrote:

alll wrote:EOS told us he is working on a GPS WP solution, that's fine for me even if it takes months

Alex,

I'll trust EOSBandi, but where he is? His latest post was 2 month ago .....

Rainer wrote:EOS Bandi has done great here in GPS.
in an open soures project should not be dependent on a person everything.
  there are many people who also can use this.
only should be accepted.
Multiwii is good, it has to be better, it can only create the community.
MAV-link projects are everywhere. why not multiwii so successful.
Mav-link is better than expensive flight control because Multiwii must go

I see mission planer can read and write files with the mav-link command need for design a navigation path

I think I will use this as base for make import/export on my multiwii hack

I need to check the mav-link code, for see if it can make sense to be supported directly and if mission planaer could be connected to multiwii with basic mav-link protocol

-ralf- wrote:

Alexinparis wrote:

alll wrote:EOS told us he is working on a GPS WP solution, that's fine for me even if it takes months

Alex,

I'll trust EOSBandi, but where he is? His latest post was 2 month ago .....

I'm here and listening....

I'm working other personal projects and having a long vacation, but indeed I'm working on wp navigation too, and will have some publicly available code soon....

Haaa, thats good news, be sure i will jump on it, thanks, manu

EOSBandi wrote:I'm here and listening....

I'm working other personal projects and having a long vacation, but indeed I'm working on wp navigation too, and will have some publicly available code soon....

Nice to hear, thanks

EOSBandi wrote:


I'm here and listening....

I'm working other personal projects and having a long vacation, but indeed I'm working on wp navigation too, and will have some publicly available code soon....

What else can you tell us?

Is going over atmega2560 board, or will be also for i2c gps module?

Which system are you planing to use for input waypoints?
MAV-link support ?

Thanks

glad to see your still around EOS!

e_lm_70 wrote:

EOSBandi wrote:


I'm here and listening....

I'm working other personal projects and having a long vacation, but indeed I'm working on wp navigation too, and will have some publicly available code soon....

What else can you tell us?

Is going over atmega2560 board, or will be also for i2c gps module?

Which system are you planing to use for input waypoints?
MAV-link support ?

Thanks

2560 and i2cgps both will be supported (this is the main reason why it took long...)
Updated version of WinGUI will include the mission planner and wp uploader.
NO MAV-Link, just pure MSP.... will add full docu, so anti-MS guys can write their own mission planner.....