How to takeoff without RC?

Hi,

I’m running PX4 v1.13.1 on a multicopter drone that does not have radio control.

Arming is denied in Commander’s preflight checks due to missing RC (“Arming denied! manual control lost”), because the drone is in MANUAL mode before taking off (which requires RC).

I can try to skip the manual control check by switching to AUTOTAKEOFF or OFFBOARD (because these modes don’t require RC during arming, see update_control_mode method in commander). However according to the docs, switching to these modes require the drone to be armed first.

What is the correct flow to takeoff then (without RC)? Is there an ‘idle’ mode that i can use before arming, instead of MANUAL mode, that will not require RC during prearm checks?

Thanks.

Hello, I also have this problem on PX4 v1.13.3. I want to fly without RC (only with a companion computer) and when I try to arm via QGroundControl I get the error “Arming denied! manual control lost”. When I try arming via MAVProxy I get the message Got COMMAND_ACK: COMPONENT_ARM_DISARM: TEMPORARILY_REJECTED AP: Arming denied! manual control lost

set COM_RC_IN_MODE parameter to 5.

1 Like

Hi @danielhonies , I tried your suggestion, but when I want to set the COM_RC_IN_MODE parameter to 5, I get the error “value must be within 0 and 2”. According to the parameter reference, I should be able to enter between 0 and 4. Do you know what I am doing wrong?

The COM_RC_IN_MODE param has the following values.

Values:
0: RC Transmitter only
1: Joystick only
2: RC and Joystick with fallback
3: RC or Joystick keep first
4: Stick input disabled

You must disable stick input altogether; for that, you must select value 4.

Hi @rroche , I have set the COM_RC_IN_MODE parameter to 4 by forcing it through QGroundControl, because it stated that the “value must be within 0 and 2”. When I try to arm through MAVProxy, I still get the message Got COMMAND_ACK: COMPONENT_ARM_DISARM: TEMPORARILY_REJECTED AP: Arming denied! manual control lost. Is there maybe another parameter I should be setting?

Even after disabling stick input I am not able to arm the drone