Drone Follow Me Tutorial using APM and Mission Planner

How to configure Mission Planner Arducopter to work in Follow Me mode. Shows how to connect a USB or Bluetooth GPS unit to your GCS (Ground Control Station) and use the Ctrl-F key sequence in Flight Data mode of Mission Planner to connect to that GPS unit and operate in Follow Me mode to have your drone track your movements.

I should point out that the Android App Droidplanner (and I think a new app called Tower) can accomplish this and a lot more like having the drone lead or follow and face you or fly beside and face you...

I should also point out that this whole Follow Me exercise with the laptop is pretty much just that, an exercise... there is a WAY easier approach.... get an android smartphone that has a builtin GPS and supports USB OTG for the telemetry module (like the LG Nexus 5 which I have tested) and you have a very tiny GCS for Follow Me Mode.

Another approach is a cheap Android tablet with builtin GPS and that supports USB OTG for the telemetry radio connection.

My first Follow Me attempt was actually with an LG Nexus 5 smartphone and that was a complete success in a very transportable very easy to use package.

I did this laptop Follow Me test just to see how it worked and to see how to get Bluetooth and other GPS information linked to Mission Planner.

I have a 7" cheap android tablet that I use for telemetry on normal flights. It does not have a GPS builtin but I was able to use the bluetooth GPS unit seen in this video with that tablet. Two key points to getting that working were an app called Bluetooth GPS from GG MobLab from the play store that acts as the bridge and reads the GPS data from the BlueTooth device and injects it into location services. There is a developer setting you must enable called Mock providers that I believe changes with Android 6 but this is documented on the GG MobLab page in the Play Store.

If I knew then what I knew now, the cheap android phone I bought to play with drones would have had builtin GPS and supported USB OTG and the cheap android tablet I bought to play with drones would have had built in GPS and supported USB OTG.

But then this video probably never would have been made... :-)

Update: tested the cheap android tablet with a USB hub plugged into the USB OTG cable. 3DR radio and USB GPS plugged into the hub. Shim called You Are Here GPS performs the same function as BTGPS did above, namely injects the GPS data into the location services. This is not a bad solution for me so I will probably continue that approach and forget about replacing my tablet or getting a new android phone for follow me mode.

Further Update: Given that Mission Planner Follow Me mode is by default going to track directly over head of the laptop, I recommend an altitude at LEAST as high as your height... else duck...

Видео Drone Follow Me Tutorial using APM and Mission Planner канала Terry Jones