What is a Ground Control Station (GCS)?A Ground Control Station (GCS) is typically a software application, running on a computer on the ground that communicates with your UAV via wireless. It displays real-time data on the UAVs performance and position and can serve as a "virtual cockpit", showing many of the same instruments that you would have if you were flying a real plane.

A GCS can also be used to control a UAV in flight, uploading new mission commands and setting parameters. It is often also use to monitor the live video stream from a UAV's cameras.

Note: APM defaults to a baud rate of 57600 baud on its telemetry port. Please set your 3DR Radio or Xbee modules and GCS software accordingly.

APM is supported by several GCSs, with more coming. As they reach maturity, they will be added here (see menu items at left). The current options are:

APM Mission Planner : Windows. This is the same utility that you will use for much of the APM mission setup. It also includes a very good GCS.

QGroundControl : A powerful and highly customizable GCS from the academic team that designed the MAVLink protocol that APM uses. Linux, Windows, and Mac.

Andropilot : Android (tablet/phone). Free app with both flight data and mission planning ability. Droidplanner : Android (tablet/phone). Free app with both flight data and mission planning ability

Apm mission planner

The above is the main Ground Station view of the Mission Planner, showing the Heads-up Display (HUD). Once you have connected via MAVLink over USB or wireless telemetry the dials and position on this screen will display the telemetry sent by APM.

A few tips:

The map will only show current position when you have GPS lock or are using a flight simulator Remember how artificial horizons work: when the aircraft tilts to the right, the horizon tilts to the left. (Just tilt

your head and you’ll see what I mean). This is normal! Please don’t tell us it’s reversed  For APM: Plane status, the output meaning is as follows:

“WPDist” : Distance to next waypoint in meters “Bearing ERR”: How far your UAV is from the perfect line to the next waypoint “Alt ERR”: How far your UAV is from the target altitude “WP”: Next waypoint to hit “Mode”: Current autopilot mode.

“APM: Plane output” means the autopilot’s outputs on the first four channels You can issues mode changes and other action commands in the air with the Mission Planner and other

GCSs, but note that you must be under autopilot control for them to take effect. When your RC toggle switch is in the Manual position, you are no longer under autopilot control and no commands will take effect. You must be in one of the other positions (Stabilize, Fly-by-Wire, Auto or any other autopilot-controlled mode) for MAVlink commands to take effect.

You can change the voice used in the speech synthesis in the Ease of Access center in Windows Control Panel. Go to the “Text to Speech” options.

If you double-click the HUD it will popout, allowing you to run the hud full screen on a second screen. If you double-click on the Speed Guage you can modify the max scale you want to display. If you enable the Tuning checkbox and double-click tuning you can graph any data that is available in the

status tab. This means you can have alt, attitude, or many other options in real time. You can use custom imagery instead of Google Maps. Press control-F. This allows you to upload your own

orthophotos. Use will require Globalmapper, as this is currently one of the key steps in exporting in the required format for use in the planner.

Loading Firmware onto APM

APM firmware is the brains of your autopilot operation, created and maintained by the dedicated open source community. Downloading the latest firmware onto APM is an important part of first time setup and also useful when updating APM’s existing firmware. These instructions will show you how to download the latest firmware onto APM.

Connect APM to computer

Once you’ve downloaded Mission Planner onto your ground station computer, connect APM to your computer using the micro USB connector and APM’s micro USB port. Use a direct USB port on your computer, not a USB hub. Click on images to enlarge.

Windows will automatically detect APM and install the correct driver software. If you get a message stating “driver not found”, follow these instructions to download the software manually.

Connect APM to Mission Planner

Next we’ll let Mission Planner know which port we’re using to connect to APM. In Mission Planner, use the drop-down menus in the upper-right corner of the screen (near the Connect button) to connect to APM. Select Arduino Mega 2560 and set the Baud rate to 115200 as shown. Don’t hit Connect just yet.

Select firmware

Now we’ll select which firmware to download to APM; this depends on the configuration of your craft. Select the Hardware screen from the icons at the top of the display. Choose your copter’s frame by clicking the corresponding icon: Quad, Hexa, Y6, plane, rover, or other. (We’ll specify + or x configuration later.) The firmware screen will not appear if you have already selected Connect, so ensure that Mission Planner shows a disconnected icon in the upper-right corner to access the firmware.

Once you select your frame, Mission Planner will automatically detect the latest firmware version for your craft and prompt you to confirm the download. Select Yes to download the firmware onto APM. When the download status reads Done, your firmware download is complete.

Connect to MavLink

Select Connect (upper-right corner of the screen) to load MavLink parameters to APM. Mission Planner will display a window showing the progress of the MavLink download.

When the window displays Done and Mission Planner shows the Disconnect option in place of Connect, your APM firmware has been downloaded successfully.

Planning a Mission with Waypoints and Events

Setting the Home Position

For APM:Copter the home position is set as the location where the copter was armed. This means if you execute an RTL in APM:Copter, it will return to the location where it was armed, so arm your copter in the location you want it to return to.

Video: Produce and save a Multi-waypoint Mission

Video: Load an already saved Multi-waypoint Mission

Note: When APM: Copter executes the Land command it will land from its current location. It will not fly to a location, then land like the planes do. If you want to land at a particular waypoint, you must fly to a normal WP, then the next command will be Land. The Absolute Altitude checkbox in the Mission Planner is ignored. ArduCopter only uses the default relative altitude.

In the screenshot above, a mission for arducopter starts with an auto takeoff to 20 meters attitude; then goes to WP 2 rising to 100 meters altitude on the way, then waits 10 seconds; then the craft will proceed to WP 3 (descending to 50 meters altitude on the way), then returns to launch.  Since the default altitude is 100 meters, the return to launch will be at 100 meters.  After reaching the launch position, the craft will land. The mission assumes that the launch position is set at the home position.

You can enter waypoints and other commands (see below for the full list). In the dropdown menus on each row, select the command you want. The column heading will change to show you what data that command requires. Lat and Lon can be entered by clicking on the map. Altitude is relative to your launch altitude, so if you set 100m, for example, it will fly 100m above you.

Default Alt is the default altitude when entering new waypoints. It’s also the altitude RTL (return to launch) mode will fly at if you have “Hold Default ALT” checked; if you don’t have that checked, your aircraft will try to maintain the altitude it was at when you switched on RTL.

Verify height means that the Mission Planner will use Google Earth topology data to adjust your desired altitude at each waypoint to reflect the height of the ground beneath. So if your waypoint is on a hill, if this option is selected the Mission Planner will increase your ALT setting by the height of the hill. This is a good way to make sure you don’t crash into mountains!

Once you are done with your mission, select “Write” and it will be sent to APM and saved in EEPROM. You can confirm that it’s as you wanted by selecting “Read”

You can save multiple mission files to your local hard drive by selecting “Save WP File” or read in files with “Load WP File” in the right-click menu:

Geotagging Images with the Mission Planner

Geo-tagged aerial pictures are very useful for mosaic mapping as well as the creation of accurate 3D models from a terrain.

The Mission Planner has a handy feature that will inject GPS data into your photos’ EXIF tags by using APM’s telemetry log from a flight.

This tutorial was created to show you how does it work. (Original work from Sandro Benigno and Guto Santaella updated by Jesus Alvarez)

Mission Planner provides two methods for geotagging your photos from a mission log

A. CAM messages from dataflash logB. Time offset (picture time log time)