Remote controller configuration
Show drones, similarly to any other drones, can be equipped with a standard RC receiver to react to pilot control through an RC transmitter. However, as soon as one starts to use multiple drones at the same time, RC control can become problematic and dangerous, too.
First of all, you need to have an RC transmitter that can bind to multiple receievers at the same time. This expectation can only scale with the large number of drones used in drone shows if the communication between the RC transmitter and receivers is one way only, i.e. there is no RC telemetry fed back to the transmitter from the drone. When you choose your RC system, make sure you select RC devices that support this operation mode.
Secondly, when you control multiple drones at the same time with the same transmitter, always practice a lot and make sure you know what you are doing. Typical examples of human error that can lead to dangerous situations include the followings:
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The motor on signal is also received by drones that the pilot did not expect to take off (even beyond visual line of sight)
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The body-frame stick control of drones do not move the drones in parallel lines but create seeminly chaotic motion in the sky resulting in uncontrolled situations and mid-air collisions
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The return to home command brings drones home at the same time, resulting in collisions.
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The pilot focuses on the control of a single drone and does not realize that others are controlled as well
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The pilot tries to switch off the motor of a single drone landed and other drones start to fall off the sky
Nevertheless, with Skybrush it is possible to use a common remote controller for all drones in a drone show to have yet another independent, safe, reliable, long-distance link between you and all your drones for some fleet-level commands, such as flight mode switches, RC-based show start, motor or takeoff tests etc.
The following firmware settings are dependent on whether you use a remote controller or not.
Flight mode setup
The Skybrush firmware does not modify any of the standard ArduCopter flight modes, so RC behaviour in these flight modes is the same as in the official ArduCopter firmware and can be configured with standard ArduCopter parameters.
For drone shows, the Skybrush firmware introduces a new custom flight mode, called SHOW mode. The normal operation of a drone show is executed exclusively in this flight mode. In SHOW mode the RC stick motion commands are deliberately disabled. This allows the RC pilot to concentrate on only misbehaving drones (e.g. ones in RTH, LAND or other standard flight modes) and control only them manually without interfering with the normal operation of the rest of the show.
The SHOW mode can also be selected from an RC transmitter. For this, you need to specify 127 as one of the flight modes, e.g.:
FLTMODE3 127
With this setting you have the flexibility to enter and exit SHOW mode any time you need, using your standard remote controller.
| We also recommend to setup other convenient flight modes on the flight mode switch of your remote controller, such as ALT_HOLD, LOITER, RTH or LAND to be able to use them quickly in case they are needed. |
Always check that all drones are in SHOW mode before flight not to miss your show start. If you do NOT have a remote controller, you can use the SHOW_MODE_BOOT parameter to force the drone to start up in SHOW mode (1), switch to SHOW mode by Skybrush Live when the show gets authorized (2), or both (3).
Start show with RC
Skybrush Live supports starting your drone show with a remote controller switch manually. To enable it, you need to set 248 as one of the RC option parameters, e.g.:
RC7_OPTION 248
With this setting any change of the 7th channel will start the motors and the show in exactly 10 seconds if you are already in SHOW mode, show start is authenticated and all preflight checks are passed.