Control the Parrot Mambo with the Simulink-compatible Firmware through the FlyPad/Phone

Hello,

i am working as a research associate at the Stuttgart University. One of my jobs is to give lectures about how to use MATLAB and Simulink as a UAV flight control system designer.

I therefore bought a Parrot Mambo drone to show students how different types of control laws and controller gain combinations affect the behavior of the drone. I have since been trying to find a way to control the drone with the Parrot Flypad whilst running the MATLAB compatible firmware on the drone.

How can I have a custom flight controller from Simulink run on the drone and get the reference values in real time from a Parrot Flypad? In the "asbQuadcopter" software in the loop model, there is a data flow into the FCS block that contains reference values for the position and orientation. For an attitude controller, it would for example be nice to get the pitch and roll orientation reference from the right stick of the Flypad controller and the yaw reference by integrating the left stick x-axis.

Thanks in advance!

Regards,

Benjamin Rothaupt M.Sc.

Institut für Flugmechanik und Flugregelung

Universität Stuttgart

E-Mail: [e-mail]

[KAE]

Beware, the Parrot Mambo FPV is discontinued, see here.

Answer 1

[srj4anoop]

Hi Benjamin,

The Parrot Flypad works only with a drone having the factory shipped firmware.

You have two options here:

• To work with the custom firmware, you can use the keyboard control block to manually control the drone while reading sensor data in Simulink using the Simulink Support Package for Parrot minidrones.

• On the other hand, The MATLAB Support package for Parrot drones works with the factory firmware and lets you read navigation data, control the drone, and capture images/video from the drone's FPV camera. This should also work in parallel with the Parrot Flypad that ships with the drone.

Answer 2

[Benjamin Rothaupt]

Hello,

thank you for the quick answer.

Is it possible to control the drone with a usb joystick instead of a keyboard block? I would like to have the ability to give proportional inputs to the drone in my presentations, not just key-presses that trigger some maneuver.

The Software-in-the-Loop model has this feature, so I assume it also exists when a real drone is connected to my computer via Bluetooth.

Regards,

Benjamin Rothaupt M.Sc.

Institut für Flugmechanik und Flugregelung

Universität Stuttgart

E-Mail: [e-mail]

[Gerardo Arboleda]

were you able to fly the drone with a joystick?

Answer 3

[srj4anoop]

You can try these out:

• https://www.mathworks.com/help/sl3d/vrjoystick.html

• https://www.mathworks.com/help/sl3d/joystickinput.html

Answer 4

[yaya net]

Hello

please can you tell me how i can change the references X,Y,Z in FCS Block, (i could't find '' positionAttitudeRef.mat '' - file) just in simulation?,

[KAE]

This seems like a separate question, so you may want to post it separately.

[yakoub nettari]

Yes, Thank you

Answer 5

[Alcino Castelo]

Dear,

Sincerely!

I am new to the world of programming in Matlab and Simulink the parrot mambo fly! That's why I have difficulty getting started! Could you please guide me to follow the steps to fly the parrot mambo with the simulink and matlab. If possible I want a complete tutorial guide on how to update the parrot mambo, with the windows 10 and Matlab RB2019

Thank you.

Kiala

[KAE]

Start here, and once you come up with a specific question, post it as a new question. You are more likely to get help that way.