About GPS/Flight Control Integration

1. Q: How to access external GPS information to the gimbal?

Case 1: The gimbal is directly connected to the GPS module

Answer: 1) Change the baud rate of the GPS module to 115200, GPS has GGA or RMC information output under the NEMA-0183 protocol. 2) Cross connect TX and RX and sent the data to gimbal serial port.

Case 2: Open source flight control output GPS information to gimbal GPS

Answer: Connecting with GPS module the flight control will send GPS data GLOBAL_POSITION_INT ( #33 ) to the gimbal serial port through FC telem port (setting: 115200, Mavlink1);

Case 3: Need development: Send GPS data to the gimbal serial port through the serial port position analysis protocol or the M packet format in the Viewlink protocol.

2. Q: How to display external GPS information on the gimbal camera image and photo attributes / exif?

Solution 1: Set by Viewlink: Connect the gimbal to Viewlink by serial port or TCP, on Viewlink: ”Settings” -> “OSD Configuration” -> Turn onn”GPS” and “GPS Input” -> “Save”

Solution 2: Set serial commands via serial port assistant: ”AA 55 05 00 FF” (Dispaly GPS on OSD), “AA 55 07 B7 FF” (OSD save)

3. Q: Test GPS display by sending commands

Answer: Send any of below commands to verify whether the GPS information can be displayed or not.

(1) {7E 7E 44 80 00 83 37 E4 07 09 10 10 05 31 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 24 83 90 02 72 DA 44 40 7F 82 CB E7 40 DC 5E 40 00 00 48 42 C4}

(2) {7E 7E 44 80 00 83 37 E4 07 09 10 10 05 31 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 24 83 90 02 72 DA 44 C0 7F 82 CB E7 40 DC 5E C0 00 00 48 42 C4}

(3) {F9 FB E3 07 0A 0B 0C 0D 13 15 F0 6C 3C B7 FD 84 3C 62 C9 91 40 0E 3F 57 17 59 B4 F7 45 00 00 00 00 40}

(4) {55 aa dc 6d b1 07 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00 8f ff 62 e3 23 6c 94 50 96 33 00 00 00 0d 40 1d ad 43 a2 68 bb 00 00 06 ea 00 00 00 f0 00 f0 00 00 27}

(5) {$GPRMC,023543.00,A,2308.28715,N,11322.09875,E,0.195,,240213,,,A*78}

4. Q: How to change GPS time zone?

Answer: Send serial command “AA 55 04 08 FF”, “08″ represents the East 8 zone, East is positive and West is negative. Send commands to change zone according to the location. This command adapt to the case that GPS or flight control data is connected, and cannot be used to the protocol M package. Correct time information need to be provided.

F9 FB E3 07 0A 0B 0C 00 00 15 F0 6C 3C B7 FD 84 3C 62 C9 91 40 0E 3F 57 17 59 B4 F7 45 00 00 00 00 20 （2019.10.11  12:00:00)

Note:

Set time zone protocol update：

AA 55 04 HH FF AA 55 34 MM FF  HH is signed integer, is the hour of the time zone, and MM is a minute of the time zone, also a signed integer.

For example, sett to -5:30: AA 55 04 FB FF AA 55 34 E2 FF

5. T series, not connect with GPS module, send according to location protocol or M package, can write time into exif when take photos.

Answer: Keep sending command with time/GPS input, Viewlink protocol command “55 AA DC 11 30 00 01 00 3F FC 00 00 00 00 04 D0 00 00 00 37″ to take photos with time or GPS attributes.

For example：

Send：F9 FB E3 07 0A 0B 0C 0D 13 15 F0 6C 3C B7 FD 84 3C 62 C9 91 40 0E 3F 57 17 59 B4 F7 45 00 00 00 00 40

Receive：FE FC E3 07 0A 0B 0C 0D 13 00 00 00 00 00 00 DB 0F C9 B9 6A D9 2E 40 00 00 A0 40 15 F0 6C 3C B7 FD 84 3C 62 C9 91 40 00 00 00 00 3D A3 64 88 E7 DE E5 3F A6 22 7C 04 E4 63 00 40 14 EF 62 6A E8 DE E5 3F 18 44 23 77 E4 63 00 40 F9

Expatiation：

E3 07 0A 0B：2019.10.11

0B 0C 0D：12:13:19

0E 3F 57 17：int32 0x17573F0E：39.1593742° –>39°09”33.75’

0.1593742*60=9.562452–>0.562452*60=33.74712

00 00 A0 40: float  big endian  0x40A00000–》5m

6. Q: Which models support geo-tagging (write GPS and time into photo exif)?

Answer: Z40K, Z40KT/Q40TIR/Z40TIR/Q20T and other T series gimbals.

7. Q: How to set up the open source flight control to solve the roll axis tilting problem of gimbal when fixed wing turns too fast?

Answer:

Connect the gimbal serial port to a TELEM of a open source flight control (e.g.: Pixhawk) to compensate for horizon drift during high dynamic flight.

FC TELEM port parameter settings: baud rate 115200, MAvlink1.

Set the parameters in ArduPilot:

•SERIALx_BAUD = 115

•SERIALx_PROTOCOL = 1

Where “x” is the port number. The value is 1 (Mavlink).

In addition, set the following message rates for this port:

•SRx_EXTRA1 = 10

•SRx_POSITION = 10

Note: All other SRx_xx parameters should be set to 0 to prevent unnecessary data from overloading the channel.

8. Q: Problems encountered when using the flight control Mavlink serial port and S.bus control

Answer:

(1) Roll axis tilt: Turn off SR1_EXRA3 data

(2) Big delay: Change SRx_RC_CHAN to 20HZ

(3) No respond to FC Mavlink serial port control: The program is older than 20210429. Update.

9. Q: How to control gimbal by SBUS out of flight control?

Case 1: Pixhawk, Pixkack/ V3 FC connect to RSSI, V5 series FC connect to SBUS_out pin

Answer: BRD_SBUS_OUT  set to 1 (50hz)

SERVO_SBUS_OUT  default as 50

BRD_SAFETYENABLE  change default 1 to 0 , or turn on safety button.

Case 2: X7 series FC do not have independent SBUS_OUT interface, output SBUS signal by serial port directly

Answer: SERIAL4_PROTOCOL  set to 15

SERIAL4_OPTIONS  set to 2

After the above settings, TX pin of FC uart4 interface will output SBUS signal. Similarly, other serial port can also be set as SBUS output.

Control method:

Servo8 set as 56, the channel 6 of the RC controls the channel 8 output by FC, which is to control the channel 8 output by SBUS.

Appendix: