Created January 28, 2020

The Fire Patrol Drone

Combining autonomous drone patrolling with heat spot detection, alarms, and providing a possibility for live analysis via FPV video stream.

AdvancedFull instructions providedOver 1 day68

Bonus Prizes

HoverGames Challenge 1: Fight Fire with Flyers

Things used in this project

Hardware components

Melexis MLX90614 IR heat sensor

VM275T 5.8GHz 25mW 48CH NTSC/PAL Mini VTX 600TVL FPV Camera

Turnigy 5000mAh 3S 20C Lipo Pack w/XT-60

Quanum Cyclops FPV goggles with integrated monitor and receiver

NXP RDDRONE-FMUK66

NXP KIT-HGDRONEK66

Software apps and online services

PX4

PX4 MAVLink

PX4 QGroundControl

Story

The Fire Patrol Drone

The Fire Patrol Drone scans for fires using an IR temperature sensor. The
temperature measurements are sent via MAVLINK to the ground control station, where they are displayed in the QGroundControl UI and compared to a threshold temperature in a custom widget. If the threshold temperature is exceeded, the operator gets notified by an alarm and can directly inspect the location of interest via FPV (first-person-view) goggles and the installed FPV camera for live video analysis of the potential fire. The solution allows for fire patrol of large areas and scalability to operate multiple drones in parallel that only require manual interaction when a fire is detected.

PX4 Firmware code changes

Defined a custom uORB message sensor_hg_mlx90614.msg.
Introduced a new example “hovergames“ in src/examples/hovergames. When started, it reads values from the temperature sensor and publishes them as custom uORB messages.
Added a MavlinkStream for “scaled pressure“-messages in src/modules/mavlink/mavlink_messages.cpp. The code subscribes to our custom uORB sensor message and transmits the measured temperatures via Mavlink MAVLINK_MSG_ID_SCALED_PRESSURE to QGroundControl.
Configured ”SCALED_PRESSURE“ stream to be sent with 1Hz in src/modules/mavlink/mavlink_main.cpp

QGroundControl

QGroundControl displays received temperatures of type “SCALED_PRESSURE” in the “Values” Widget. If temperature measurements are not shown automatically, select the Preferences wheel and enable Temperature (1).

Custom widget written in QML for QGroundControl.
Our custom widget reads and displays the received temperatures from the QGroundControl fact system;
Our custom widget compares the temperatures against a threshold value. Lower temperatures are reported as Temperature OK, exceeding temperatures cause a Temperature ALARM.
To enable our custom widget click Widget -> Custom Command -> Load hovergames.qml.

Custom widget in action:

Custom QGroundControl widget - Temperature below threshold

Custom QGroundControl widget - Temperature alarm

Setup Documentation

Temperature sensor and FPV camera mounted to Hovergames drone:

Quanum Cyclops FPV goggles:

FPV goggle’s display when the Hovergames drone is turned off:

FPV goggle’s view after turning on the Hovergames drone:

QGroundControl before starting temperature measurements:

Starting and stopping Hovergames temperature measurements:

Temperatures received via Mavlink and displayed in QGroundControl:

Inspection of a fire through FPV goggles after receiving a fire alarm:

Code

QGroundControl custom widget

import QtQuick 2.2

import QGroundControl.Controls      1.0
import QGroundControl.FactSystem    1.0
import QGroundControl.FactControls  1.0
import QGroundControl.Palette       1.0
import QGroundControl.ScreenTools   1.0
import QGroundControl.Controllers   1.0

Rectangle {
    anchors.fill:   parent
    color:          qgcPal.window
    property var threshold: ({ value: '30.0' })
    

    function testTemperature(temperature) {
        if (temperature < threshold.value) {return "Temperature OK";}
        else {return "Temperature ALARM";}
    }

    function getTemperatureColor(temperature) {
        if (temperature < threshold.value) {return qgcPal.colorGreen;}
        else {return qgcPal.colorRed;}
    }

    CustomCommandWidgetController {
        id:         controller
        factPanel:  panel
    }

    QGCPalette { id: qgcPal; colorGroupEnabled: enabled }

    Column {
        spacing: ScreenTools.defaultFontPixelHeight
        property var    _activeVehicle: QGroundControl.multiVehicleManager.activeVehicle ? QGroundControl.multiVehicleManager.activeVehicle : QGroundControl.multiVehicleManager.offlineEditingVehicle
     
        QGCLabel {
            text:           "Measured Temperature"
        }  
        
        FactTextField {
            // Display the currently measured temperature
            // You can replace it with a specific component id if you like
            fact: _activeVehicle.temperature.getFact("temperature1")
        } 

        QGCLabel {
            text:           "Threshold"
            anchors.right:  parent.right
            anchors.left:   parent.left
            wrapMode:       Text.WordWrap
            visible:        true
        }

        QGCTextField {
            text:           threshold ? (threshold.value ? threshold.value : "") : ""
            visible:        true
            showUnits:      true
            unitsLabel: { return "C" }
            anchors.right:  parent.right
            anchors.left:   parent.left
            inputMethodHints: Qt.ImhFormattedNumbersOnly
            onAccepted: { threshold.value = parseFloat(text) }
            onEditingFinished: { threshold.value = parseFloat(text) }
        }

        QGCLabel {
            text:   { return testTemperature(_activeVehicle.temperature.getFact("temperature1").value) }
            color:  { return getTemperatureColor(_activeVehicle.temperature.getFact("temperature1").value) }
        }  
    }
}

Forked PX4 Firmware

Customized PX4 Firmware • Defined a custom uORB message sensor_hg_mlx90614.msg. • Introduced a new example “hovergames“ in src/examples/hovergames. When started, it reads values from the temperature sensor and publishes them as custom uORB messages. • Added a MavlinkStream for “scaled pressure“-messages in src/modules/mavlink/mavlink_messages.cpp. The code subscribes to our custom uORB sensor message and transmits the measured temperatures via Mavlink MAVLINK_MSG_ID_SCALED_PRESSURE to QGroundControl. • Configured ”SCALED_PRESSURE“ stream to be sent with 1Hz in src/modules/mavlink/mavlink_main.cpp

Credits

IngovM

1 project • 0 followers

NXP employee

Comments

Awards

Bonus Prizes

HoverGames Challenge 1: Fight Fire with Flyers

The Fire Patrol Drone