Parrot Ar Drone 2.0 Programming

Question

I am looking to connect with anyone who is programming the Parrot AR Drone 2.0. This drone has some amazing potential. EZ robot has an excellent intro video but I am very interested in developing stand alone programs and use additional sensors to make the drone human independent.

thetechguru · Answer

Do you have the GPS adapter? Have you checked out QGroundcontrol? You can plan independent flights between pre-set waypoints with it. Documentation is horrible, but there are some good youtube videos. Alan

DJ Sures · Answer

Alan, I believe the question was targeted at using ezrobot for the drone. Welcome to the site pkelly - I can tell you that ar parrot drone and ezrobot are used often in the education space classroom. I'm unsure what specific stand-alone apps have been created for the drone by other community members. Browsing our ezcloud appstore in ARC, I can see quite a few publically shared projects, but I am unable to comment on their function or completeness. However, I can expand on the functionality available to the drone from our software. The video you referenced demonstrated basic color tracking with a few mouse clicks - with the camera module, you can use any of our tracking methods for both tracking and orientation. This means your drone can be used to understand what room it is in by Glyphs or QR Codes. Additionally, the ARC software gives your ar parrot drone the ability to be remote controlled from anywhere with an internet connection. Specifically, the ARC's HTTP Custom server with real-time video. The number of interface devices for controlling the drone is interesting, as well. We've recently added support for the MYO. Other devices which we support are WiiMotes, Joysticks, EZ430 Chronos, and even augmented reality headsets. In short, if you have an idea of using the ar parrot drone in an application - download our ARC software and our community will help you create it

thetechguru · Answer

DJ... Technically my reply was as much for you as for pkellyht. Being able to send waypoints to the GPS chip from ARC would be an awesome addition to add to the 1000 item todo list. qgroundcontrol is open source, so you could find the needed commands from there, or it follows the "Mavlinks" standard, so you may find better source documentation. Given the poor documentation of qgroundcontrol, and the desire to integrate my drone activity with other robot activity, I owuld rather use EZ-Robot for all my robot flying needs Alan

DJ Sures · Answer

interesting alan, the GPS integration into ARC could use some attention. Have you used the Flight Recorder ar parrot drone add-on? I'll have a FLight Recorder add-on shipped to our facility for integration

DJ Sures · Answer

Okay - flight recorder is ordered and on its way

pkellyht · Answer

wow. You guys are awesome! Thanks for the quick feedback. I am just getting started with Parrot drone. I teach computer science and robotics to high schools students. I need to spend some more time with the ezsoftware interface. I have connected the drone and have performed some simple flying. Is there a way through Ezrobot to write simple scripts and get the drone to fly? I would like to use the tracking abilities and have the drone hover and go after different objects based on color. For example red will make it go forward, blue will make it fly backward, yellow will make it land, etc. I have not found any other site that has taken advantage of the drones abilities like you guys do. Is there anyway there could be a scripting interface? are you familiar with the nodecopter site? As I right this their site is down...I hope it comes back. Thanks!

thetechguru · Answer

I have one, but have only briefly used it because every day I had free time either the weather didn't cooperate, or there was a soccer game going on at the school field where I have enough room to fly without hitting trees. If it doesn't rain this Sunday I will be trying it out. My Niece is getting married next September. She is marrying a pilot and airplane restorer, and they want aerial video of their wedding, so I need to get a lot of practice in with flying to different waypoints and aiming the camera all automatically before then. The last thing I want to do is make a mistake and have the drone crash into the middle of all the guests Alan

thetechguru · Answer

@pkellyht, Yes, there are script commands for controlling the drone. The forward, reverse, left, and right movement panel commands all work, plus these specific drone commands: RollRight( [milliSeconds] ) Using the servo port settings from a Movement Panel Control, this will roll your drone robot right Optionally, you can specify the number of milliseconds to turn. Example #1: RollRight() Example #2: RollRight(1000) RollLeft( [milliSeconds] ) Using the servo port settings from a Movement Panel Control, this will roll your drone robot left Optionally, you can specify the number of milliseconds to turn. Example #1: RollLeft() Example #2: RollLeft(1000) Land() Tell your flying drone to land Example: Land() TakeOff() Tell your flying drone to take off Example: TakeOff() DroneEmergency() Tell your flying drone to reset from emergency or power down when flying. This command should be added a button on the joystick so you may stop the drone so it does not get away or in danger. Since the drone has a camera, any of the tracking activities will work. Simple following a recognized object doesn't even need a script. Doing something you describe would be fairly simple scripting. You don't need an EZ-B to us ARC with the AR-Drone, but you might be better off getting the developer kit or a Roli and practicing most of your movement scripts with a ground based device before taking them the air. You would just need to change your camera source, and movement panel and all the scripts will work at a given altitude, although left and right won't turn the drone, it will just slew sideways. But then adding altitude and roll commands to the existing scripts would be easy (as well as adding takeoff and land scripts if you want). Alan

thetechguru · Answer

I also expect after DJ gets the Flight Recorder, we might see new available variables or commands to get drone position and altitude, and direction (while moving, not sure it can give direction when stationary. GPS can't provide that, and it doesn't have a compass).

Unfortunately, the weight carrying capacity of the AR Drone is very low, so you wouldn't be able to add an EZ-B and power to it in order to add additional sensors other than what it already delivers from its altitude ping sensor, camera, and GPS.

Alan

thetechguru · Answer

DJ, one other request for additional drone support. With the latest firmware, it is possible to change the AR Drones IP address, or even make it connect to another WiFi instead of running in AP mode (much like the EZ-B v4, although it doesn't support WEP or WPA security, just open networks )

Could you add support for connecting to it on an alternate IP address?

Thanks,

Alan

pkellyht

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