Well, I Feel Stupid

2014-04-26

Given that the AR.Drone’s control system sends roll/pitch/yaw parameters as floats between 1.0 and -1.0, I thought the navdata sent back things the same way. I was never getting the output I expected in the SDL nav window, though.

Then last night, I was comparing how NodeCopter parses the same nav packets and seeing completely different numbers. Turns out the AR.Drone sends back numbers in millidegrees instead.

I feel dumb for not noticing this before. OTOH, this is only “documented” in the AR.Drone source code. The actual docs tell you to look at the navdata in Wireshark and figure out the rest for yourself.

Corrections are now up on github. Should be a new release of UAV::Pilot distros coming up soon. These releases will cleanup quite a few details that I wanted to get done before YAPC, so we should be in good shape.

Hopefully, the TSA won’t bother me too much with an AR.Drone in my carry-on. Some people at my local hackerspace managed to get a whole Power Wheels Racer, including the battery, into their carry-on, so I think I’ll be good.