Extending communication between UAV and GCS

1

Hello,

We are currently developing a drone to be used under trees in a plantation/farm environment. The drone has a Jetson Orin Nano onboard, and is connected to the computer running QGC as the GCS via P2P wireless connection (the Jetson is connected directly to the computer’s hotspot). However, this connection is very unstable, with QGC showing “communication lost” within 10 metres direct LOS in the plantation as opposed to nearly 100m in an open field.

Data being exchanged include:

  1. compressed image stream through gstream from a CSI camera onboard
  2. MAVLink telemetry

Any suggestions on how to increase the range/stability of this connection? We’re currently looking into WiFi extenders to extend the range of the hotspot, but are unsure how much latency would be introduced. 4G dongles are also being considered, but we welcome any better options to solve this issue.

Many thanks in advance.

2

Saw this LoRa telemetry module from Microair, has anyone had any luck with it (preferably with a Pixhawk 6C Mini)

3

I’ve been using the Micoair telemetry module for several months now, and I can confirm that it works out of the box with the PX4 firmware. I used the Kakute H7 v1.3 flight controller.
The LR-900F works for at least 1 km—I haven’t flown farther, so I don’t know the maximum range.

1 Like
4

Thanks for the reply. How is the performance in terms of telemetry streaming? Does it stream all MAVLink messages in normal mode? Have you tried streaming anything else (eg: image/video feed) with it?

Also, have you tried the 2.4GHz version? Thinking of trying both out and comparing the range and performance.

5

That sounds great—please keep me updated on the comparison results.

I haven’t tested it with anything other than standard MAVLink streaming in normal mode.