The pathfinder edge box is listening to messages for drone status, Where the drone thinks it is, and RC channels. it requests all data streams like a ground control station but this is what it is looking for specifically

• HEARTBEAT

• RC_CHANNELS

• GLOBAL_POSITION_INT

• COMMAND_ACK

• STATUSTEXT

Heartbeat

We listen to heartbeat to figure out what mode the drone is in. This is so we can determine if we are in guided mode and can send the drone motion commands.

RC Channels

We listen to rc channels to determine when to do specific actions and control specific actions in the system for debugging

• chan 7

  • values above 1900 enable our targeting and waypoint navigation system

• chan 8

  • values above 1900 enable our VPS engine to output location info to the drone instead of outputting location data from our reference GPS unit. upon a transition from below to above 1900 the VPS engine snaps it's location to the gps location. this functionality can be useful for getting a drone to a certain position with GPS

Global Position int

We listen to this information to determine which way the drone is pointing, how high the drone is off the ground, AGL, and where the drone thinks it is. 

With respect to drone location, Most drones don't trust there gps sensors entirely on where they are. Because of this GPS location and drone location are almost never the same. For our more targeting and swarming functions we occasional send the drone locations that are offsets from its current position. 

Messages we publish