The Plan View is used to plan autonomous missions for your vehicle. They can either be programmed on the ground control station or programmed on a desktop and uploaded to the GCS. Once the mission is planned and sent to the vehicle, you switch to the Fly View to fly the mission.
GeoFence and Rally Points are not currently supported.
UI Overview
The screenshot above shows a simple mission plan. It starts with a takeoff at the Planned Home position (H), flies through three waypoints, and then lands.
The main elements of the UI are:
- Map: Displays the numbered indicators for the current mission, including the Planned Home. Click on the indicators to select them (for editing) or drag them around to reposition them.
- Plan Toolbar: Status information for the currently selected waypoint relative to the previous waypoint, as well as statistics for the entire mission (e.g. horizontal distance and time for mission).
- Max telem dist is the distance between the Planned Home and the furthest waypoint.
- When connected to a vehicle it also shows an Upload button, can be used to upload the plan to the vehicle.
- Plan Tools: Used to create and manage missions.
- Mission Command List/Overlay: Displays the current list of mission items (select items to edit).
It shows you information related to the currently selected waypoint as well as statistics for the entire mission.
Planning a Mission
The basic steps to create a mission are:
- Change to Plan View.
- Add waypoints or commands to the mission and edit as needed.
- Upload the mission to the vehicle.
- Change to Fly View and fly the mission.
The following sections explain some of the details in the view.
Planned Home Position
The Planned Home shown in Plan View is used to set the approximate start point when planning a mission. It is used to estimate mission times and to draw waypoint lines.
You should move/drag the planned home position to roughly the location where you plan to take off. The altitude for the planned home position is set in the Mission Settings panel.
The Fly View displays the actual home position set by the vehicle firmware when it arms (this where the vehicle will return in Return/RTL mode).
Plan Tools
The plan tools are used for adding individual waypoints, easing mission creation for complicated geometries, uploading/downloading/saving/restoring missions, and navigating the map. The main tools are described below.
Center map helps users better view and navigate the Plan view map (they don’t affect the mission commands sent to the vehicle).
Add Waypoints
Click on the Add Waypoint tool to activate it. While active, clicking on the map will add a new mission waypoint at the clicked location. The tool will stay active until you select it again. Once you have added a waypoint, you can select it and drag it around to change its position.
File (Sync)
The File tools are used to move missions between the ground station and vehicle, and to save/restore them from files. The tool displays an ! to indicate that there are mission changes that you have not sent to the vehicle.
Before you fly a mission you must upload it to the vehicle.
The File tools provide the following functionality:
- Upload (Send to vehicle)
- Download (Load from vehicle)
- Save/Save as to File, including as KML file.
- Load from File
- Remove All (removes all mission waypoints from Plan view and from vehicle)
Importing Missions, Using Load from File
To import mission plans from other programs:
- Export the mission as a .plan file
- Transfer the file from another device to the Herelink Ground Control Station by saving it onto the Herelink’s micro SD card in the followind directory:
Flight Deck > Mission Plans - Go to Plan > File > Load from File and select the mission
Pattern
The Pattern tool simplifies the creation of missions for flying complex geometries, including surveys and structure scans.
Terrain Altitude
This tool is intended to provide a visual indicator of the distance between the vehicle and terrain variations.
Once a mission is uploaded to the vehicle, select the file tab and then select download. This will download and convert the survey mission to a waypoint mission, allowing the pilot better terrain awareness during automated flights.
Changing Camera or Payload
To change the camera or payload, go to the Vehicle Settings > Payload Setup menu.
Mission Command List
Mission commands for the current mission are listed on the right side of the view. At the top are a set of options to switch between editing the mission. Within the list, you can select individual mission items to edit their values.
Mission Command Editors
Click on a mission command in the list to display its editor (in which you can set/change the command attributes).
You can change the type of the command by clicking on the command name (for example: Loiter (turns). This will display the Select Mission Command dialog shown below. By default this just displays the “Basic Commands”, but you can use the Category drop down menu to display more (e.g. choose All commands to see all the options).
Click the command name to insert it into the mission plan. Once added, command-specific options will be available.
Mission Settings
The Mission Start panel is the first item that appears in the mission command list. It may be used to specify a number default settings that may affect the start or end of the mission.
Mission Defaults
Waypoint alt
Set the default altitude for the first mission item added to a plan (subsequent items take an initial altitude from the previous item). This can also be used to change the altitude of all items in a plan to the same value; you will be prompted if you change the value when there are items in a plan.
Flight speed
Set a flight speed for the mission that is different than the default mission speed.
Mission End
Return to Launch after mission end
Check this if you want your vehicle to Return/RTL after the final mission item.
Planned Home Position
The Planned Home Position section allows you to simulate the vehicle’s home position while planning a mission. This allows you to view the waypoint trajectory for your vehicle from takeoff to mission completion.
This is only the planned home position and you should place it where you plan to start the vehicle from. It has no actual impact on flying the mission. The actual home position of a vehicle is set by the vehicle itself when arming.
The section allows you to set the Altitude and Set Home to Map Centre (you can move it to another position by dragging it on the map).
Camera
The camera section allows you to specify a camera action to take, control the gimbal and set your camera into photo or video mode.
The available camera actions are:
- No change (continue current action)
- Take photos (time)
- Take photos (distance)
- Stop taking photos
- Start recording video
- Stop recording video
Vehicle Info
The appropriate mission commands for the vehicle depend on the firmware and vehicle type.
If you are planning a mission while you are connected to a vehicle the firmware and vehicle type will be determined from the vehicle.
The additional value that can be specified when planning a mission is the vehicle flight speed. By specifying this value, total mission or survey times can be approximated even when not connected to a vehicle.
Troubleshooting
Mission (Plan) Upload/Download Failures
Plan uploading and downloading can fail over a noisy communication link. If a failure occurs you should see a status message in the UI similar to:
Mission transfer failed. Retry transfer. Error: Mission write mission count failed, maximum retries exceeded.
If you experience a failure, retry uploading the mission.