Update! ArduRover 4.1.0-Beta1 Mower w/GPS Yaw - NO magnetometers!

A brief update with the newly released 4.1.0-Beta1 build installed. Previously I was using a magnetometer fallback along with GPS yaw, which is not what I intended, but the development build that I was using had a bug that caused constant nuisance warnings about bad compass health if all compasses were disabled/unused. Not anymore!!!
For more information, join the discussion in the ArduPilot community forums:
discuss.ardupi...

[@Travelinmatt1976]

Awesome! Can't wait for new videos. I finally started working on my rover. Eventually I want to build a boat that I will send from the Texas Gulf Coast to Florida and back.

[@blicube9879]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/rJ2pc6d4j79_mJY

[@KennyTrussell]

Yuri! This is awesome. I can't believe how well tuned your machine is. And the pivot turns are really nice. I like how the mower doesn't start moving forward at a corner until the heading is just right. The turn at 1:20 was a really good example of that. I'm looking forward to attempting to duplicate your success. Can't wait for more of your ipdates.

[@blicube9879]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/rJ2pc6d4j79_mJY

[@Levi-kc9pv]

I love this! Looking forward to the additional updates coming.

[@blicube9879]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/rJ2pc6d4j79_mJY

[@toycobra12]

Looking forward to the next videos in the series!

[@YoungGrizzly]

Nice. I am beginning to building one of these as well using nodejs. Hopefully i can make it as nice as tours.

[@skullcraftcustoms]

My neighbors think I’m crazy too that’s why I’m cooler than they are! Lol right on brother keep up the good work!

[@Tex_Track]

hey hope all is well. Glad to see you posted a video a couple weeks ago. I have been learning a lot from you and have seen you in forums helping people. I will have to post a video sometime of my build not really anything amazing though to be honest. There are a few questions I have for you. What is GPS/No Yaw? I have tried looking this up but not much on this topic. My other question is i am using a pixhawk 6x no RTK GPS. Do you recommend upgrading to a base station and rover 9 RTK GPS or a dual antenna RTK GPS? Thanks again for all the videos. This technology is really awesome blows my mind.

[@RutTheMouth]

Is there a 101 course on how to build a rover mower like this? I have a background in automotive vehicles and some electronics but no robotics. I am a slow learner and will take whatever help anyone can give me. I think the first order of business is to acquire a materials list. I have no idea what servos to use to control the left and right sticks of a zero turn mower. No idea what computer to use to drive the servos or to gather GPS data. I am new to this and have a lot of grass I am tired of cutting.

[@skullcraftcustoms]

In the old days before the autonomous systems automatically laid out the way points you could fly a device the way you wanted and it would store all of the pan/tilt/yaw Actions conducted with your RC controllerand everything and allow you to re-fly at exactly the same way is it possible to take argue or pics hawk and manually drive your mower exactly the way you want it done and have that path saved to reuse later as an autonomous waypoint track

[@YurisHomebrewDIY]

I’m not aware of an exact playback feature that tracks all control/input changes, but I make heavy use of the “save waypoint” feature that allows real time storage of vehicle position as a waypoint. I trace the perimeter of my intended mowing area that way and then use those saved waypoints to create spiral paths in the Mission Planner software. See my other videos for a discussion of the technique.

[@tonka5]

Good video. I like the way this works. I am concerned that the repeatability will leave ruts from the tires over several mowings.

[@YurisHomebrewDIY]

It surely can. I try to change things up a few times throughout the season.

[@JMBCreations]

Your video have been awesome while building my own smaller version recently! Do you have a failsafe in place if your RTK Fix/float drops below the RTK thresholds? Personally when I lose an RTK fix, I don’t want the missing to continue and instead hold it position. Unfortunately the only solution I have see so far is changing the firmware code or incorporate a LUA script, both of which I know nothing about.

[@YurisHomebrewDIY]

I wrote this script for exactly that purpose, and it has been accepted as an official example for ArduPilot. github.com/ArduPilot/ardupilot/blob/master/libraries/AP_Scripting/examples/rover-MinFixType.lua

[@JMBCreations]

@@YurisHomebrewDIY you sir are an absolutely legend! Thanks again for sharing your great work! Can’t wait to see another update or any tweaks you have made to the mower!

[@YurisHomebrewDIY]

@@JMBCreations Thank you so much! I know my video content happens in fits and starts, and it just seems to be the way things go. I get so busy making things that it becomes difficult to document on video. I will endeavor to provide some updates soon!

[@barneycarparts]

I have too many trees to lock a good GPS signal. I tried about 5 years ago with an ardupilot board and a ublocks 4 GPS. Maybe its time to look at all the new stuff Im sure its much better now. Im interested in the onboard GPS and yaw and the off board GPS Injector you mentioned. I need to know more about that for lane accuracy. I have 2.5 acres to mow. I wish someone would just offer a stable kit for John Deere riding mowers. Kind of a plug and play system. Then I could just get the damn thing working and begin the tweaking process.

[@paulhatfield498]

Hey mate. Love your mower. I am making one as well. Question.. with you f9p moving base set-up, what update rate are you running ? I'm getting 5hz ok but issues hen trying 10hz.

[@YurisHomebrewDIY]

Use 5 Hz. It's the recommended rate, and 10 Hz is often problematic, as you've found.

[@paulhatfield498]

@YurisHomebrewDIY yeah too easy. Will stick to 5hz. Should have the new set-up ready to test in a few months. Moving base repeatability looks alot better than my previous magnetometer set-up so pretty excited to see how it all goes.

[@gregkozma401]

Looking for as much detail as possible on this, wanting to build or buy 1 for myself..have a lot of pieces just not the operational platforms running........let's talk please 🙏 🙂

[@YurisHomebrewDIY]

Find me on the ArduPilot forum: discuss.ardupilot.org I’m pretty active there and should be back to work on this project later in July.

[@blicube9879]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/rJ2pc6d4j79_mJY

[@CncObsession]

Where in general are you located? The terrain and plants look very much like the Houston/Conroe area. Would hate to find out you area a neighborhood over and I am racking my brain to learn this stuff ;-)

[@YurisHomebrewDIY]

It's not a bad guess, and I do like the Conroe area, but I'm not very close-by :-)

[@don-uv2zj]

Very nice and interested, I am working on my small mower but didn't get accurate like your, are u using rtk base ?

[@YurisHomebrewDIY]

Yes, I'm using 3 Zed-F9P modules from ArduSimple - two on the mower itself for yaw, and one as a fixed base to provide RTCM3 injection.

[@garfigarfi-i9g]

Hello Yuri´s !. Hello Can I make my robot autonomous only with the RTK GPS with Pixhawk without Arduino? My robot uses the MDDS30A FlySky FS iA6X transmitter with FS iA10B receiver connected to the Cytron controller and I would like to make it autonomous like your robot Is it also necessary to buy the Arduino ? . Please help me with my project, advise me, I am very new to this, watch my 2 videos, my robot and see what you think!

[@YurisHomebrewDIY]

There is no Arduino involved in any of my videos depicting this mower. ArduPilot is well documented at ardupilot.org

[@FourthWayRanch]

the compass will work if it's on a plastic post mounted 2 feet above the mower

[@YurisHomebrewDIY]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/jXXLo2h7apWBmtU

[@passthehash8909]

I'm curious if something like this could be hauled around property to property, load a predone mission and let it mow? This seems to beat something like the Husqvarna EPOS mowers for speed by a long shot.

[@YurisHomebrewDIY]

It definitely could. It’d be easiest in an area where you could use NTRIP servers for RTK correction, but you could use a self-built base station (see my most recent video) to overcome a lack of available NTRIP data. The way I use mine, it wouldn’t be worthwhile to do a one-time job this way (there’s some setup involved that takes a bit of time), but if you had a set of properties to mow regularly, that setup cost would be overcome by repetition.

[@passthehash8909]

​@@YurisHomebrewDIY I was thinking that the base station would come with us to each lawn. I'd imagine its a little more involving than just setting up the tripod and turning it on but as long as it's not a 10 minute ordeal each time it seems like it'd be worth it. I'm definitely inspired by your build it's absolutely amazing!!

[@YurisHomebrewDIY]

@@passthehash8909 If you're serious about building one, take a look at some of my less exciting videos about the Mission Planner interface. There, I show the workflow involved in setting up a mowing pattern. I think that can be streamlined, but it can be a little tedious. Once set up, though, it's just a matter of loading the waypoints and selecting auto mode.

[@passthehash8909]

@@YurisHomebrewDIY I'd love to take our current zero turn or even start at a smaller scale with a push mower. I think I'd be able to stumble (not joking) my way through coding but the hardware is pretty straight forward. I know the RTK components tend to be the most costly but I'd feel accomplished if I can geek out on a personal project that might help me stay more productive.

[@TungPham-om9ex]

Can you please explain detail how to config base station talk to two Ardusimple on the rover. You inspired me a lot. Thank you

[@YurisHomebrewDIY]

I appreciate the kinds words! My GPS modules are configured exactly per the documentation with GPS_DRV_OPTIONS=1. Link: ardupilot.org/copter/docs/common-gps-for-yaw.html

[@TungPham-om9ex]

@@YurisHomebrewDIY sorry but I do not see any base station mentioned in the link you gave. Can you please help?

[@YurisHomebrewDIY]

@@TungPham-om9ex Watch my video on the subject: kzbin.info/www/bejne/bGTamaSsh9mrb68

[@blicube9879]

kzbin.info/www/bejne/rJ2pc6d4j79_mJY

[@blicube9879]

@@YurisHomebrewDIY kzbin.info/www/bejne/rJ2pc6d4j79_mJY

[@dgb5820]

Are you using F9P rover and base station

[@YurisHomebrewDIY]

I’m using Zed-F9P based simpleRTK2B boards for the fixed base, moving base, and rover. Highly recommend them over the alternatives.