Hello everyone. I’ve been trying to create a new base station for my project, I am using qgroundcontrol, my laptop, a wifi router (wavlink AX1800), ESP32 with DroneBridge as my wifi telemetry and my flight controller.
As I read in the documentation from “DroneBridge”, I needed to setup my ESP32 as a wifi client, I thought it would be easy like “plug and play” but I’ve been having problems ever since. I took a step back and decided to test the ESP32 as a wifi telemetry but using it as an AP instead, it worked perfectly fine.
I changed again to a wifi client but I haven’t been able to connect it to my wifi router. Some of the things I’ve done to fix this issue are:
- Set my router with two separate wifi networks, one on 2.4 GHz and the other one on 5 GHz. I did this because I’ve seen that some esp32’s aren’t compatible with wifi 5 nor 6. My wavlink router is wifi 6 btw.
- Forced my wifi network to use lower channels. I’ve read in some forums that higher channels like 12 and 13 can cause some issues in connections.
- Set the UDP server client from my ESP32 on the same address ranges as my wifi network (192.168.10.x).
- Tried to check logs from the ESP32 but I can’t see anything from it whenever it is configured as wifi client. I haven’t had this issue while using it as an AP.
- I haven’t been able to set a “comm link” on QGC because I haven’t been able to connect my ESP32 to my wifi and see what IP it gets. I have try to set a UDP client on the webUI from DroneBridge and it hasn’t worked.
Any recommendations?
It’s been 2 days and I haven’t been able to fix this. Can anyone help?
Hello,
Did you go through the PX4 documentation ESP32 WiFi Module | PX4 Guide (main)
Check if your router ( setup) shows the IP address of the ESP32 configured as a client in the DHCP client list . If it is not there, it may be that your router doesn’t work either 2.4Ghz or 5 Ghz band . Make sure both bands are enabled ….
Thank you for your response.
I’ve reviewed the DHCP client list on my router, but it only shows my laptop (the base station)—the ESP32 doesn’t appear.
Previously, my router was configured with a “smart band steering” system that automatically selected between 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands. I’ve since disabled that feature and separated the bands, so now the router broadcasts distinct SSIDs for each. Despite this change, the ESP32 still isn’t connecting.
For reference, both my laptop and the flight controller (which includes the ESP32) are connected to the 2.4GHz band.
Hello
From what I understand , drone bridge works well as hotspot rather than as a wifi client.. in any case the issue is with esp32 config.
Also I am not understanding why you would need wifi based flight controller connected with the router when the purpose of drone bridge is to wirelessly send mavlink commands to the F.C via esp32.
I’m working on building a robust RTK system that uses both LoRa and Wi-Fi telemetry to transmit RTK correction data. Naturally, the Wi-Fi link is only suitable for short-range scenarios, while LoRa provides extended coverage when RTK corrections are necessary.
Thanks again for your response.
It was just a matter of the 802.11b support. It was disable on my router by deault. It is finaly fixed.
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