Tracking a drone (Betaflight) in real-time on a map - using a Wi-Fi connection to TBS Crossfire TX

If you want to track in real-time your drone or if you're going to spot the area of a crash or the location of an emergency landing visually or if you want to track your drone on the map in real-time even if the VTX link is lost and you triggered the return to home function, then this video is for you.
All the configuration steps are presented in this video to achieve the previously presented goals.
Mission Planner: firmware.ardupilot.org/Tools/...
Tracking a drone in real-time (Bluetooth): • Real-time drone(runnin...
TBS Crossfire update: • A TBS Crossfire module...
00:00 - Introduction
02:20 - Data flow diagram
03:12 - The hardware connections
04:44 - Configuring the Betaflight firmware
06:05 - Configuring the TBS Crossfire receiver, transmitter, and the Wi-Fi component through LUA scrips
13:20 - Smartphone (Android OS) & Mission Planner
15:04 - Laptop (Windows OS) & Mission Planner
17:06 - Mission Planner: downloading maps for offline use
MORE INFO:
If you can get only the "MAVLink in emulation" mode, this happens because you do not receive correct and real MAVLink data to your TBS Crossfire TX. So, check the following: 1. The connexon is correctly done between FC and TBS Crossfire RX - TX to RX and RX to TX. 2. Check that the wires are not broken, 3. Check on the FC and TBS Crossfire RX if you don't have a soldering bridge between TX and RX pads, 4. In Betaflight, did you configure the specific UART at which you connected the TBS Crossfire RX? 5. In Betaflight, did you configure the UART port correctly (on MAVLink and 115200)? 6. In TBS Crossfire RX, did you configure the MAVLink TX and RX on the correct output channels correctly?
╔═╦╗╔╦╗╔═╦═╦╦╦╦╗╔═╗
║╚╣║║║╚╣╚╣╔╣╔╣║╚╣═╣ → bit.ly/3arWvOq
╠╗║╚╝║║╠╗║╚╣║║║║║═╣ I Really Appreciate Your Support!
╚═╩══╩═╩═╩═╩╝╚╩═╩═╝

[@samavella8831]

Thank you. I’ll have a look at the video in full when this evening after work. Again, it’s greatly appreciated that you went out of your way to do a specific video to answer my question! 👍

[@samavella8831]

Hi, Just watched the entire video. Excellent job! Very detailed and a very logical approach to your presentation! Thank you again. I will definitely have to try it on my next build, which will hopefully have enough UARTs to support the extra Mavlink communication connections!

[@i3Drones]

I'm glad I was able to help you!

[@kiskorsky]

thanks for your video! you speak everything so well, for the first time I understood English by ear without an interpreter

[@i3Drones]

Thank you very much! If you allow me, I recommend the following video: kzbin.info/www/bejne/ine9ZYZqodJlgLM Based on this film proposed above, you will achieve all your goals in this film (where I comment) in a simpler and easier way.

[@raptr49]

Thank you for this very thorough tutorial.

[@i3Drones]

Consider it my Christmas present ... which came earlier. :-)

[@tgenial58]

Thank you very very much for all those explanations👏👏👏

[@i3Drones]

Glad I can help!!! Other will come!

[@zotalfpv8785]

This is the best tutorial for tbs mavlink I have ever seen on the internet. Great job! Thank you!

[@i3Drones]

I'm happy to help. Please support me ... like ... sub ... Thank you!

[@zotalfpv8785]

@@i3Drones Liked, subbed. Awesome tutorial. Can we use this method to connect via betaflight configurator or inav configurator and change settings?

[@i3Drones]

@@zotalfpv8785 in PX4 autopilot based on MavLink I'm able to change almost everything. But, in Betaflight the Mavlink is not fully supported - so, you are very limited. In iNave I have little experience, so I can not say ... maybe...

[@jumpstartfpv]

I didn't know I could do this without any additional hardware! Thank you for making this step by step video. Makes it very easy. I'm going to do this on both my tracer freestyle quad and my crossfire fr7.

[@i3Drones]

The method work very well. I used this approach for more than 6 months. Success! ... and, above all, enjoy the flight!

[@i3Drones]

Right now I'm working to another video - how to protect and prolong the life of your VTX.

[@jumpstartfpv]

However I can't get it to go into Full mode. It's stuck on emulation.

[@i3Drones]

@@jumpstartfpv You have the MAVLink emulator mainly because the TBS Crossfire TX does not receive a real MAVLink data flow and, in this case, it take the Crossfire telemetry and convert it to MAVLink by emulation. So, ceck all the MAVLink data path: 1. The hardware connection is correctly done (port TX-RX and RX-TX), 2. The UART port is OK? Connect a GPS receiver to check if it is able to exchange data with the GPS. The FC RX and TX are in shortcircuit? Are the wire interupted? 3. In betaflight you set up to the associated port MAVLink and 112500 baud rate?, 4. In the RX module do you configured the hardware channels to be able to support MAVLink protocol?

[@eugeneteo71]

Excellent video. I've been looking how to connect Mission Planner to the plane in realtime. I wasted a lot of time watching ArxangelRC with his Dragon Link example, but yet he doesn't address the basic information like how the receiver, FC, transmitter and PC connects. He obviously knows what he is doing, but he is very poor at explaining. You on the other hand gave very clear overview in the beginning, then goes into specific details, then finally shows us the final result. Your video even show the wiring between receiver and FC. EXCELLENT!

[@i3Drones]

I'm glad I was able to help you. Other similar movies will be coming soon based on ExpressLRS.

[@racerat]

Thank you for this, really helpful!

[@i3Drones]

Thank you, for passing by! Other will come!

[@AERR_FPV]

Going to try Thanks Cheers

[@silat3796]

louad and clear. i wacthed the entire videos. very impormative. you earned my subscription. one thing want to request. next video is for rc boat. hope you can make for rc boat

[@i3Drones]

I'm glad, I was able to help you! If you want you can have another solution here (that also works flawless): kzbin.info/www/bejne/ine9ZYZqodJlgLM With the RC boats I have a little experience to none. My closest experience with a boat is a hovercraft build by me and my children: kzbin.info/www/bejne/iGanipqYj8Smrac The main idea is to understand the basic principles, after that you can apply them in a different situation.

[@paul-mylesfpv]

This would help locating lost drones

[@i3Drones]

Yes it is one of the goals!

[@FasterThanJesus666]

Such a great tutorial

[@i3Drones]

In this evening or tomorrow I will publish a new tutorial that will allow you to track a drone more easy. This will work on Android and IOS devices also.

[@sokratgjermeni3851]

Great video, grazie!

[@i3Drones]

Others will come!

[@BrainDeadEngineering]

Outstanding ! So this vehicle is or can be flown autonomously ? hands off ?

[@NunoFlyer]

Hello, Nice work, congrats. Any idea if its possible do that with Crossfire and Ardupilot on flight controller? Regards

[@i3Drones]

In the same mode you can get the MAVLink data and forward it to the ground control center. The idea is the same.

[@aleksanderpawelczyk5221]

Thank You. Very good job. How long is Your telemetry range? Can you show your drone(antenna localisation )etc..? Regards

[@i3Drones]

I do not have a direct answer to you. I flew around 300-400 m without any problems. But I did not make any flight to see what is the maximum radius at which the telemetry connection falls. My antena is placed on the right back arm in an orizontal position (I know is not the best position). Here you have a video with my drone: kzbin.info/www/bejne/mnuZZayEorOjjqs.

[@steinne]

excellent work- question- Everything seems to work, with the exception of very high packet loss. The quality of the connection never gets over 50. I see when you had stats listed in Mission Planner, you were at 80 or so. Any guidance on increasing link quality?

[@i3Drones]

Check to see if you do not have some issues with the antennas (RX - may be in contact with the frame? or TX). I didn't do nothing special to get that specific packet loss value.

[@steinne]

@@i3Drones thank you, I will check- my FC and receiver are on the test bench- no frame yet. I am using the Mico Crossfire TX. Which may be the issue- not sure. Appreciate your help Sir.

[@i3Drones]

@@steinne I used nano receiver. So, I think that your problem is not from the receiver type. You can also tray to use the last software version. I think that right now it is 6.14. When I made the video, I used 6.13 that was under the beta. So, right now the firmware must be better.

[@kimmyyimmel2010]

Is it possible to set this up with express LRS since elrs uses the crossfire protocol? I think you would need to add some kind of Bluetooth or wifi connectivity to the module but if you did that what do you think?

[@i3Drones]

It is possible .... but, I do not have an ExpressLRS device ... so it is hard to tell, all it is possible!

[@reinhardherden516]

@@i3Drones It is not possible as shown because ExpressLRS neither works as a Mavlink bridge nor can emulate Mavlink (from CRSF).

[@SajedM.alamuti-gg8kq]

Excellent tutorial👍🏾👍🏾👍🏾 Does this unit can fly with mission planner autonomously??

[@i3Drones]

The drone must accept waypoints - if you have Betaflight no, in the case of PX4 or Ardupilot yes.

[@wuyibin73]

I got full mavlink, and the real-time tracking function works properly. but still, the VSPD(vertical speed) is missing in the telemetry, is that because nano rx does not support baro sensor? I was want to use VSPD sensor for variometer function on my radiomaster TX16S.

[@vaphualfpv]

Awesome video. But will it reduce the range?

[@i3Drones]

The RC and telemetry links are on 868/915 MHz, and the WiFi is on 2.4 GHz. So, from this point of view, there is no interference. The telemetry link is used anyway. So, you put there more information. However, the power of the telemetry link (25 mW if I remember correctly) is inferior to that of the RC link. By using Crossfire Nano Rx Pro you will get 500 mW - more than enough.

[@Gosuminer]

Thank you very much for this video. I want to try the same thing with a similar setup but I am running into problems and don't know where to look for clues on what's going wrong. As an autopilot I use a Matek F405-STD drone flight controller with ArduRover 4.2.3 and a Crossfire Nano RX (FW: 6.19) connected to a Crossfire Micro TX (FW: 6.19, Wifi: 1.41). I think I wired the Mavlink wires correctly to the receiver, set the Pads to Mavlink RX and TX and configured ArduRover to send telemetry. I do get "Mavlink: Full", not "Emulated". I can connect the Crossfire Module to a Wifi network or connect my phone to the Crossfire Module if it is running as an access point. In TBS Agent Lite I don't have a "Mavlink" option for Wifi, just "UDP" and I set the port to 8888. I can ping the module but Mission Planner or QGroundControl won't connect. UDP gives a timeout and TCP instantly gives an error message. Any ideas how I could investigate the problem?

[@Gosuminer]

I finally got it to work. The reason was that the Mavlink baud rate was set to 57600 instead of 115200 in ArduRover. Connecting took 15 minutes on my notebook but with a phone it went quickly. The foresight of Raphael Pirker is amazing to put Wifi in each Crossfire module to enable exactly these kinds of use cases Thanks again for your video (subscribed).

[@beefybeef1326]

Hi there. Great video... can this be done with any crossfire tx module? Like on the tbs tango 2 or tbs micro? Or do i need the full size crossfire module with bluetooth? Sorry for the silly question... im a beginner!

[@i3Drones]

No, you don't need a full size module! You need to have only a Wi-Fi.

[@beefybeef1326]

@@i3Drones thank you so much! You saved me alot of money!!..i was going to do this via bluetooth using the full size module. Now i will try to get smaller crossfire tx module.... maybe i will be the crossfire tx lite (2W)

[@i3Drones]

@@beefybeef1326 you have here another solution: kzbin.info/www/bejne/ine9ZYZqodJlgLM

[@beefybeef1326]

@@i3Drones thank you very much!.... you have a new subscriber! 🙂👍

[@i3Drones]

@@beefybeef1326 thanks man! Best regards!

[@weinstrassendrohnefpv6822]

Will this work with the TBS Tango 2 as well?

[@i3Drones]

Yes!

[@user-vg5qg1rs3m]

Hi, I have crsf tx lite without BT. Can I track my aircraft using your vids way? And My receiver is crsf nano.

[@i3Drones]

Yes! For crsf tx without Bluetooth you have the possibility to use the wi-fi. It is working like in this video.

[@reinhardherden516]

You can transfer the position to Mission Planner (Windows, Android) or QGroundControl (iOS) with CF as shown via Mavlink but with Betaflight this is actually only a half example because Betaflight can only output/send Mavlink. But Mavlink is bi-directional and thus via Mavlink a copter can be completely controlled with ArduPilot, missions can be uploaded and much more, all during the flight ... Unfortunately, Crossfire comes here very quickly to limits, because the Mavlink integration there is not 100%. Crossfire is unfortunately not able to transmit a CRSF stream AND Full Mavlink at the same time performant.

[@i3Drones]

From my experience the QGroundControl (it is very appealing, runs on Win, Mac OS X, Ubuntu & Android) does not work - at least the last version, it receive the MAVLink stream but is unable to work on the map. You are right, the Betaflight can only send info. through MAVLink. The Crossfire FW version that work with MAVLink and WiFi is in the beta version, more on the last 10-12 releases they improve version after version the MAVLink. So, I think that in near future it will be fully functional.

[@Mi78]

@@i3Drones Hey! Are there any updates on that issue of crossfire not supporting crsf and mavlink at the same time realibly?

[@abrahambarcena6043]

Great video It worked excellent, the only problem that i have is that the app does not load the maps when Is connected to the wifi of the crsf Transmitter, Is there a way to make the app load the maps from the 4g connection of my phone???

[@i3Drones]

I'm glad for you!!! Congratulation! The solution is presented at the end of the movie. You must download the maps previously and use them after that in an offline approach. I wasn't able to find another solution - if you find one, please tell me also.

[@arghyadas5789]

Can we plan missions as well through laptop and upload it on flight controller

[@i3Drones]

In Betaflight is impossible - the autopilot was not think in this way.

[@yousefsaadeh7144]

Did that work for long range flight?

[@i3Drones]

Depends what meens for you long-range. As I know my receiver nano has an emission power of 400 mW. On the datasheet of the transmitter they note: "with 100mW you can achieve 15 km of safe range in rural conditions". So, with a 400 mW link I think you can go for at lest 15 Km. But if you compaire 2 W of the transmiiter (full and lite versions) with 400 mW of the receiver, it is clear that weak link is the telemetry link - you can go far away with the transmitter and the first that will interupt will be the telemetry link from the receiver.

[@madladdan]

Do you have to use Mavlink protocol?

[@i3Drones]

In this approach yes. But you have another solution presented here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/ine9ZYZqodJlgLM

[@Fpvlandscapes]

Hello Mate I followed you tutorial. I did it on 5 planes but i got some strange behaviour. Could you help me?? First. 3 planes are fine i got mavlink full and i can connect them to missionplanner. The other 2 planes( althought i did the same procedure) i got only mavlink emulation, BUT the strange thing is that i am able to connect to missionplanner anyway and have full data on my pc... (it seems like a wrong message on tbs module) Second. I got some issue with pitch animation. I got the right one on the Inav lua script but i got a reverse movement on MP. ( roll is the same MP and INAV lua) How to solve it? Thanks

[@madamidooo8542]

hi sir , firstly nice video . can i give orders from mission planner , apply waypoints , change flight mode or tracking only

[@i3Drones]

In Betaflight you are unable to do this. In Ardupilot or PX4 it is working.

[@madamidooo8542]

thanks , sir

[@wuyibin73]

i used sbus instead csrf. but the coordinates from crossfire to the smarphone was wrong, showing 12.345s 23.445w, while the fc has right gps coordinate114.234N 22.456E, works properly.

[@i3Drones]

SBUS protocol is not a bidirectional one (has only 3 wire: data, V+ and GND). So, the information from FC is unable to reach the receiver. Use the CRSF protocol and connect RX and TX from receiver to FC.

[@GODlikeTeaching]

Is there a way for this kind of feature to work on ELRS and Jumper T-Pro?

[@i3Drones]

I'm working right now on a tutorial for ELRS. But, due to this period I will release it after the new year. My email adress is [e-mail], give me a message and I will send to you the global schematic. If you are patient in 1-2 may be 3 weeks I will publish on my channel.

[@agungwaw]

​@@i3Dronesis there any updates on using elrs ?

[@bobg1443]

Could you do this using a Fire Tablet if you don’t have an Android phone?

[@i3Drones]

The only requirements are: android system with an wifi connection. ... or Windows system with n wifi connection. Fire Tablets runs a Fire OS that is based on a Android 9, so ... iti is possible to work. Tray to install Mission Planner, if you are able to ... it almost works.

[@samavella8831]

@@i3Drones Hi Dan-Marius, Are you saying that there are no Apple iOS apps that can do the same? Thank you!

[@WindjumbieFPV]

Is this available for iPhone?

[@i3Drones]

Mission Planner works on Android and Windows. iPhone is a close environment, so, tray to find another ground control app able to decode MAVLink protocol.

[@syedmuhdakram8450]

I have tbs tx lite module and dont have Bluetooth functionality like full version tbs crossfire dose tbs tx lite can do like on your video

[@i3Drones]

You will use the Wi-Fi connection and it will work without any problems - tx lite has a such connection.

[@syedmuhdakram8450]

@@i3Drones dose mavlink telemetry dose support longrange since im using tbs nano diversity reciver?

[@i3Drones]

@@syedmuhdakram8450 as I know the TBS Nano Crossfire Telemetry has 40 mW. So, I beleve that nano diversity has also 40 mW ... so, it is not so long range. But, the TBS Crossfire Nano Pro has 500 mW and there are movies that prove the abiliry of Crossfire Nano Pro to go up to 60 km !!!!!!

[@i3Drones]

@@syedmuhdakram8450 here is the video with 60 Km: facebook.com/groups/CrossfireAndTracer/posts/6843925129014324/

[@syedmuhdakram8450]

@@i3Drones man must join to watch the video but i know tbs nano pro dose it real can do 60km range with no signal telemetry lost cause I already watched some videos on KZbin this reciver will lose telemetry at 17km range hmm dose 60km is hype or real ?

[@staydown.normal5323]

were can i download mav link

[@i3Drones]

Mav-link is the protocol used to get GPS data - the application ArduPilot can be downloaded from the offical site: ardupilot.org

[@staydown.normal5323]

ok i shows wrong / when i go up it shows im going down how do i fix?

[@i3Drones]

I do not understand, in ArduPilot you get this information? It is the GPS position?

[@staydown.normal5323]

@@i3Drones its uses everything in lua scripts... i got it working and tracking my drone with crossfire

[@Chris-vc1dh]

is this possible with inav?

[@i3Drones]

Yes, the INAV support Crossfire - so, in conclusion a big YES!

[@Chris-vc1dh]

@@i3Drones but is there a live ground software like for ardu?

[@staydown.normal5323]

you dont need 3 and 4 you all ready have 1 and 2 tx rx

[@i3Drones]

If you want emulated mavlink you need only the information from 1 & 2 (CRSF TX & RX), for full mavlink data need also 3 & 4.

[@i3Drones]

You have here a more easy solution: kzbin.info/www/bejne/ine9ZYZqodJlgLM but it works only on smartphone.