Integration of Smart Radio with QGroundControl and the Pixhawk 4 Flight Controller: Introduction

Integration of Smart Radio with QGroundControl and the Pixhawk 4 Flight Controller: Introduction

Introduction

This guide expands on our previous application notes and guides for video streaming and wireless connectivity for Unmanned Aerial Systems [1, 2]. It demonstrates how a Doodle Labs Smart Radio can be used to send MAVlink telemetry data between QGroundControl (QGC) [3] and the Pixhawk 4 Flight Controller (FC) [4] running px4 [5], while integrating a companion computer for video streaming and robotics capabilities.

An overview of the system setup is shown in Figure 1. We assume QGroundControl (QGC) is used as the GCS, and a Pixhawk FC is used on the UAV. There are various ways in which the Video Streamer could be implemented, and in this guide, we will assume a SBC such as the Nvidia Jetson Nano running GStreamer. We will also include the commands required to stream video directly to QGC.





Figure 1 – System Setup