Materials needed for flight testing

• Base Station and Drone
• Some means of relocating the base station (a truck or trailer) if you don't want to wheel it to your testing location.
• Wifi router
• Power supply for the Wifi router (needs USB-C port)
• Ethernet cable
• Ubuntu Laptop (make sure it is charged) capable of running QGroundControl and remoting into both the LattePanda and RaspberryPi if needed
• Digital Multimeter
• Extra propellers and wrenches kit
• At least one extra drone battery
• RC Transmitter

Location and equipment placement

1. Make sure the base station battery is charged (at least 12.6V)
2. Find a location that is relatively open and free of traffic (we used the Rugby Field).
3. Place the base station somewhere flat and within 10 meters of the computer used for running the mission.
4. Make sure the drone is oriented properly inside the base station and that the base station doors are closed.

Drone Setup

1. Ensure all PX4 calibration steps have been completed (instructions
2. Plug in the battery to the drone.
3. Turn on the wifi router and keep it within range of the drone.
4. Start QGroundControl (QGC).
5. Connect QGC to the Base Station LoRa or RC Transmitter LoRa (UDP 192.168.8.200:14550 or UDP 192.168.8.199:14550)
6. Wait for the RaspberryPi to bootup (about a minute).

Drone setup is complete when the appropriate 'Mission - Precision Land', 'Manual - Open Doors', and 'Manual - Close Doors' modes are available for selection from within QGroundControl.

INFO: If there are any issues with drone setup, ssh into the onboard PI and ensure that all ROS2 services are running. A list of services that should be running can be found here

Base Station Setup

The setup is a little more simple for the base station since all it needs to do for the mission is open and close the doors.

1. If using the 12V solar battery as the main power supply, turn the power switch to position 2, else position 1 for auxiliary power.
2. The router should already be on, but make sure it is on and within range of the base station. You can alternatively plug an ethernet cable from the router to the base station ethernet port to ensure it connects properly.
3. The LattePanda takes about 2 minutes to startup. Once it does, you should see the modes show up in QGC and should be able to open and close the doors.

Plan and Execute a Mission with QGroundControl

Plan and upload a valid mission using QGroundControl. Instructions for this can be found here. Once a mission has been uploaded, it can be started by selecting the 'Mission - Precision Landing' Mode from within QGroundControl. The drone should then open the base station doors, takeoff, perform the mission, and then perform a precision landing.

[!WARNING] It is HIGHLY recommended to have an operator using the RC transmitter and ready to take over manual control at any point throughout the mission sequence.