PX4 User Guide
  • Introduction
  • Getting Started
    • Basic Concepts
    • Vehicles/Frames
    • Flight Controllers
    • Sensors
    • Radio Systems
    • Flight Modes
    • Vehicle Status Notifications
      • LED Meanings
      • Tune/Sound Meanings
      • Preflight Checks
    • Payloads & Cameras
    • Flight Reporting
  • Basic Assembly
    • Mounting the Flight Controller
    • Mounting the GPS/Compass
    • Vibration Isolation
    • Cable Wiring
    • CUAV Pixhawk V6X Wiring QuickStart
    • CUAV V5+ Wiring Quickstart
    • CUAV V5 nano Wiring Quickstart
    • Holybro Pixhawk 6C Wiring Quickstart
    • Holybro Pixhawk 6X Wiring Quickstart
    • Holybro Pixhawk 5X Wiring Quickstart
    • Holybro Pixhawk 4 Wiring Quickstart - Discontinued
    • Holybro Pixhawk 4 Mini Wiring Quickstart - Discontinued
    • Holybro Durandal Wiring Quickstart
    • Holybro Pix32 v5 Wiring Quickstart
    • Cube Wiring Quickstart
    • Pixracer Wiring Quickstart
    • mRo (3DR) Pixhawk Wiring Quickstart
  • Standard Configuration
    • Firmware
    • Airframe
    • Sensor Orientation
    • Compass
    • Gyroscope
    • Accelerometer
    • Airspeed
    • Level Horizon Calibration
    • Radio Setup
    • Joystick Setup
    • Flight Modes
    • Battery
    • Safety
      • Failsafe Simulation
    • ESC Calibration
    • Actuators
    • Autotune
  • Vehicle Types & Setup
    • Multicopters
      • Multicopter Config/Tuning
        • MC Filter/Control Latency Tuning
        • MC PID Tuning (Manual/Basic)
        • MC PID Tuning Guide (Manual/Advanced)
        • MC Setpoint Tuning (Trajectory Generator)
          • MC Jerk-limited Type Trajectory
        • Multicopter Racer Setup
      • X500 v2 (Pixhawk 6C)
      • X500 v2 (Pixhawk 5X)
      • X500 (Pixhawk 4)
      • S500 V2 (Pixhawk 4)
      • DJI F450 (CUAV v5+)
      • DJI F450 (CUAV v5 nano)
      • QAV250 (Pixhawk4 Mini) - Discontinued
      • DJI F450 + RTK (Pixhawk 3 Pro)
      • QAV250 (Pixhawk Mini)
      • QAV-R 5" Racer (Pixracer)
      • Omnicopter
    • Planes
      • Fixed Wing Config/Tuning
        • Fixedwing PID Tuning Guide
        • Fixedwing Advanced Tuning Guide
        • Fixedwing Trimming Guide
      • Reptile Dragon 2 (ARK6X)
      • Turbo Timber Evolution (Pixhawk 4 Mini)
      • Wing Wing Z84 (Pixracer)
    • VTOL
      • VTOL Config/Tuning
        • QuadPlane Configuration
        • Back-transition Tuning
        • VTOL w/o Airspeed Sensor
        • VTOL Weather Vane
      • Standard VTOL
        • FunCub QuadPlane (Pixhawk)
        • Ranger QuadPlane (Pixhawk)
        • Falcon Vertigo QuadPlane (Dropix)
      • Tailsitter VTOL
        • Build: TBS Caipiroshka Tailsitter Build (Pixracer)
      • Tiltrotor VTOL
        • Build: Convergence Tiltrotor (Pixfalcon)
    • Airships (experimental)
    • Autogyros (experimental)
      • ThunderFly Auto-G2 (Holybro pix32)
    • Balloons (experimental)
    • Helicopter (experimental)
      • Helicopter Config/Tuning
    • Rovers (experimental)
      • Traxxas Stampede
    • Submarines (experimental)
      • BlueROV2
    • Airframes Reference
  • Flying
    • First Flight Guidelines
    • Flying 101
    • Missions
      • Package Delivery Mission
    • GeoFence
    • Safety Point Planning
    • Flight Modes
      • Position Mode (MC)
      • Altitude Mode (MC)
      • Manual/Stabilized Mode (MC)
      • Acro Mode (MC)
      • Orbit Mode (MC)
      • Position Mode (FW)
      • Altitude Mode (FW)
      • Stabilized Mode (FW)
      • Acro Mode (FW)
      • Manual Mode (FW)
      • Takeoff Mode
      • Land Mode
      • Return Mode
      • Hold Mode
      • Mission Mode
      • Follow Me Mode
      • Offboard Mode
    • Terrain Following/Holding
  • Flight Log Analysis
    • Log Analysis using Flight Review
    • Log Analysis using PlotJuggler
  • Advanced Configuration
    • Finding/Updating Parameters
    • Full Parameter Reference
    • ECL/EKF Overview & Tuning
    • Flight Termination Configuration
    • Bootloader Flashing onto Betaflight Systems
    • Land Detector Configuration
    • Prearm/Arm/Disarm Configuration
    • IMU Factory Calibration
    • Sensor Thermal Compensation
    • Compass Power Compensation
    • Advanced Controller Orientation
    • Static Pressure Buildup
    • Serial Port Configuration
    • MAVLink Telemetry (OSD/GCS)
    • PX4 Ethernet Setup
    • Bootloader Update
  • Hardware (Drones&Parts)
    • Complete Vehicles
      • ModalAI Starling
      • PX4 Vision Kit
      • MindRacer BNF & RTF
        • MindRacer 210
        • NanoMind 110
      • Holybro Kopis 2
      • Bitcraze Crazyflie 2.1
    • Flight Controllers (Autopilots)
      • Pixhawk Series
        • Silicon Errata
      • Pixhawk Standard Autopilots
        • CUAV Pixhawk V6X (FMUv6X)
        • Holybro Pixhawk 6X (FMUv6X)
        • Holybro Pixhawk 6C (FMUv6C)
        • Holybro Pixhawk 6C Mini(FMUv6C)
        • Holybro Pix32 v6 (FMUv6C)
        • Holybro Pixhawk 5X (FMUv5X)
        • Holybro Pixhawk 4 (FMUv5) - Discontinued
        • Holybro Pixhawk 4 Mini (FMUv5) - Discontinued
        • Drotek Pixhawk 3 Pro (FMUv4pro)
        • mRo Pixracer (FMUv4)
        • Hex Cube Black (FMUv3)
        • mRo Pixhawk (FMUv3)
        • Holybro Pixhawk Mini (FMUv3) - Discontinued
      • Manufacturer-Supported Autopilots
        • AirMind MindPX
        • AirMind MindRacer
        • ARK Electronics ARKV6X
        • CUAV X7
        • CUAV Nora
        • CUAV V5+ (FMUv5)
        • CUAV V5 nano (FMUv5)
        • CUAV Pixhack v3 (FMUv3)
        • CubePilot Cube Orange+ (CubePilot)
        • CubePilot Cube Orange (CubePilot)
        • CubePilot Cube Yellow (CubePilot)
        • Holybro Kakute H7v2
        • Holybro Kakute H7mini
        • Holybro Kakute H7
        • Holybro Durandal
        • Holybro Pix32 v5
        • ModalAI Flight Core v1
        • ModalAI VOXL Flight
        • ModalAI VOXL 2
        • mRobotics-X2.1 (FMUv2)
        • mRo Control Zero F7)
        • NXP RDDRONE-FMUK66 FMU
        • Sky-Drones AIRLink
        • SPRacing SPRacingH7EXTREME
        • ThePeach FCC-K1
        • ThePeach FCC-R1
      • Experimental Autopilots
        • BeagleBone Blue
        • Raspberry Pi 2/3 Navio2
        • Raspberry Pi 2/3/4 PilotPi
          • PilotPi with Raspberry Pi OS
          • PilotPi with Ubuntu Server
      • Discontinued Autopilots/Vehicles
        • Drotek Dropix (FMUv2)
        • Omnibus F4 SD
        • BetaFPV Beta75X 2S Brushless Whoop
        • Bitcraze Crazyflie 2.0
        • Aerotenna OcPoC-Zynq Mini
        • CUAV v5
        • Holybro Kakute F7 (Discontinued)
        • Holybro Pixfalcon
        • Holybro pix32 (FMUv2)
        • mRo AUAV-X2
        • 3DR Pixhawk 1
        • Snapdragon Flight
        • Intel® Aero RTF Drone (Discontinued)
      • Pixhawk Autopilot Bus (PAB) & Carriers
        • ARK Electronics Pixhawk Autopilot Bus Carrier
    • Flight Controller Peripherals
      • ADSB/FLARM (Traffic Avoidance)
      • Air Traffic Avoidance: ADSB/FLARM
      • Air Traffic Avoidance: UTM
      • Airspeed Sensors
        • TFSlot Airspeed Sensor
      • Barometers
      • Camera
      • Distance Sensors (Rangefinders)
        • Lightware SFxx Lidar
        • Ainstein US-D1 Standard Radar Altimeter
        • LeddarOne Lidar
        • Benewake TFmini Lidar
        • Lidar-Lite
        • TeraRanger
        • Lanbao PSK-CM8JL65-CC5
        • Avionics Anonymous Laser Altimeter UAVCAN Interface
      • ESCs & Motors
        • PWM ESCs and Servos
        • DShot ESCs
        • OneShot ESCs and Servos
        • DroneCAN ESCs
          • Zubax Telega
          • PX4 Sapog ESC Firmware
            • Holybro Kotleta
            • Zubax Orel
        • VESC
      • TBS Crossfire (CRSF) Telemetry
      • FrSky Telemetry
      • Gimbal (Mount) Configuration
      • GPS/Compass
        • ARK GPS
        • Holybro DroneCAN M8N GPS
        • LOCOSYS Hawk A1 GNSS
        • Hex Here2
        • Holybro M8N & M9N GPS
        • Sky-Drones SmartAP GPS
      • Grippers
        • Servo Gripper
      • Optical Flow
        • ARK Flow
        • PMW3901
        • PX4FLOW (Deprecated)
      • Precision Landing
      • Parachute
      • Power Modules/PDB
        • CUAV HV pm
        • CUAV CAN PMU
        • Holybro PM02
        • Holybro PM07
        • Holybro PM06 V2
        • Holybro PM02D (digital)
        • Holybro PM03D (digital)
        • Pomegranate Systems Power Module
        • Sky-Drones SmartAP PDB
      • Satellite Coms (Iridium/RockBlock)
      • Telemetry Radios
        • SiK Radio
          • RFD900 (SiK) Telemetry Radio
          • HolyBro (SIK) Telemetry Radio
        • Telemetry Wifi
          • ESP8266 WiFi Module
          • ESP32 WiFi Module
          • 3DR Telemetry Wifi (Discontinued)
        • Microhard Serial Telemetry Radio
          • ARK Electron Microhard Serial Telemetry Radio
          • Holybro Microhard P900 Telemetry Radio
        • CUAV P8 Telemetry Radio
        • HolyBro XBP9X - Discontinued
      • RTK GPS
        • ARK RTK GPS
        • RTK GPS Heading with Dual u-blox F9P
        • CUAV C-RTK
        • CUAV C-RTK2 PPK/RTK GNSS
        • CUAV C-RTK 9Ps
        • Femtones MINI2 Receiver
        • Freefly RTK GPS
        • Holybro H-RTK-F9P
        • Holybro H-RTK-M8P
        • Holybro H-RTK Unicore UM982 GPS
        • Locosys Hawk R1
        • Locosys Hawk R2
        • Septentrio AsteRx-RIB
        • Septentrio mosaic-go
        • Trimble MB-Two
        • CubePilot Here+ (Discontined)
      • Remote ID
      • Smart Batteries
        • Rotoye Batmon Battery Smartification Kit
      • Tachometers (Revolution Counters)
        • ThunderFly TFRPM01 Tachometer Sensor
      • I2C Peripherals
        • I2C bus accelerators
        • TFI2CADT01 I2C address translator
      • CAN Peripherals
      • DroneCAN Peripherals
        • PX4 DroneCAN Firmware
        • ARK CANnode
    • Companion Computers
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        • RasPi Pixhawk Companion
      • Companion Computer Peripherals
      • Holybro Pixhawk RPI CM4 Baseboard
      • Auterion Skynode
      • Computer Vision
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        • Safe Landing
        • Collision Prevention
        • Path Planning Interface
        • Motion Capture (MoCap)
        • Visual Inertial Odometry (VIO)
          • Realsense T265 Tracking Camera (VIO)
      • Video Streaming
  • Development
    • Getting Started
      • Recommended Hardware/Setup
      • Toolchain Installation
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        • Ubuntu Setup
        • Windows Setup
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        • Other/Generic Tools
      • Building the Code
      • Writing your First Application
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    • Concepts
      • PX4 Architecture
      • PX4 Flight Stack Architecture
        • Controller Diagrams
      • Events Interface
      • Flight Modes
      • Flight Tasks
      • Control Allocation
      • PWM limit state machine
      • System Startup
      • SD Card Layout
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        • Multi-Vehicle Sim
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        • Worlds
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      • Simulate Failsafes
      • HITL Simulation
      • Simulation-In-Hardware
    • Hardware
      • Flight Controller Reference Design
      • Manufacturer’s Board Support Guide
      • Flight Controller Porting Guide
        • PX4 Board Configuration (kconfig)
        • NuttX Board Porting Guide
      • Serial Port Mapping
      • Airframes
        • Adding a New Airframe
      • Device Drivers
      • Telemetry Radio
        • SiK Radio
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        • I2C Bus
        • UART/Serial Ports
          • Port-Configurable Serial Drivers
      • RTK GPS (Integration)
    • Middleware
      • uORB Messaging
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        • ActuatorArmed
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        • ActuatorMotors
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On this page
  • WFB-ng Overview
  • Hardware Setup
  • Hardware Modification
  • UAV configuration
  • Using a Linux Laptop as GCS (Harder than using a RasPi)
  • Using Raspberry PI as GCS (Easier)
  • QGroundControl Setup
  • Tuning Radio Settings
  • Antennas and Diversity
  • FAQ
  • Theory
  1. Development
  2. Tutorials

Long-distance Video Streaming

PreviousTutorialsNextConnecting an RC Receiver on Linux

Last updated 1 year ago

This page shows how to set up a companion computer with a camera (Logitech C920 or RaspberryPi camera) such that the video stream is transferred from the UAV to a ground computer and displayed in QGroundControl. It also provide a bidirectional link and TCP/IP tunnel for drone control during flight. If you manually control the drone with a Joystick from QGroundControl (which uses MAVLink) then you can use WFB-ng as single link for all drone communications (Video, MAVLink telemetry, remote control using a Joystick).

This setup uses WiFi in unconnected (broadcast) mode and software from the .

:::note Before using WFB-ng check regulators allow this kind of WiFi use in your country. :::

WFB-ng Overview

The WFB-ng project provides a data transport that use low-level WiFi packets to avoid the distance and latency limitations of the ordinary IEEE 802.11 stack.

The high level benefits of WFB-ng include:

  • Low-latency video link.

  • Bidirectional telemetry link (MAVLink).

  • TCP/IP tunnel.

  • Automatic TX diversity - use multiple cards on the ground to avoid antenna tracker.

  • Full link encryption and authentication (using ).

  • Aggregation of MAVLink packets (pack small packets into batches before transmitting).

  • Enhanced for Raspberry PI or generic linux desktop with gstreamer.

Additional information is provided in the below.

Hardware Setup

The hardware setup consists of the following parts:

On the UAV side:

  • Raspberry PI 3B/3B+/ZeroW

  • One of:

On the ground side:

  • One of:

    • Any computer with USB port and Linux (tested on ubuntu 18.04 x86-64)

    • Raspberry PI connected via Ethernet to computer running QGroundControl on any OS.

Hardware Modification

Alpha AWUS036ACH is a medium power card that uses a lot of current while transmitting. If you power it from ordinary USB2 it will reset the port on most ARM boards. If you connect it to USB3 port via native USB3 cable to a Linux laptop you can use it without modification.

For Raspberry PI (UAV or ground) it must be directly connected to 5V BEC (or high current power adapter in case of ground pi) in one of two ways:

  • Make a custom USB cable ([cut +5V wire from USB plug and connect it to BEC])(https://electronics.stackexchange.com/questions/218500/usb-charge-and-data-separate-cables)

  • Cut a +5V wire on PCB near USB port and wire it to BEC (don't do this if doubt - use custom cable instead).

But if you use special very high power cards from taobao/aliexpress then you MUST power it as described above in ANY case.

UAV configuration

  1. Flash it to the UAV Raspberry PI

  2. Reboot it and ssh with standard credentials (pi/raspberry).

  3. Run actions for air role as displayed in motd.

  4. Setup camera pipeline. Open /etc/systemd/system/fpv-camera.service and uncomment pipeline according to your camera (PI camera or Logitech camera)

  5. Open /etc/wifibroadcast.cfg and configure WiFi channel according to your antenna setup (or use default #165 for 5.8GHz)

  6. Configure PX4 to output telemetry stream at speed 1500kbps (other UART speeds doesn't match well to RPI frequency dividers). Connect Pixhawk uart to Raspberry PI uart. In /etc/wifibroadcast.cfg uncomment peer = 'serial:ttyS0:1500000' in [drone_mavlink] section.

Using a Linux Laptop as GCS (Harder than using a RasPi)

  1. On ground Linux development computer:

    sudo apt install libpcap-dev libsodium-dev python3-all python3-twisted
    git clone -b stable https://github.com/svpcom/wfb-ng.git
    cd wfb-ng && make deb && sudo apt install ./deb_dist/wfb-ng*.deb
  2. Don't forget to copy /etc/gs.key from UAV side to ground side to bind two setups.

  3. Also don't forget to use the same frequency channel as on the UAV side.

Using Raspberry PI as GCS (Easier)

If you have Windows, OSX, or don't want to setup WFB-ng to your Linux laptop then you can use the same prebuilt image and another Raspberry Pi:

  1. Flash image to the ground Raspberry Pi.

  2. Reboot it and SSH in with standard credentials (pi/raspberry).

  3. Run actions for ground role as displayed in motd, but skip setup of fpv-video service and osd service.

  4. Connect your laptop and ground RasPi via ethernet and configure IP addresses

  5. Edit /etc/wifibroadcast.cfg and set the IP address of the laptop in [gs_mavlink] and [gs_video] sections (replacing 127.0.0.1).

QGroundControl Setup

  1. Run QGroundControl and set RTP h264 on port 5600 as video source

  2. Use default settings (udp on port 14550) as mavlink source

Tuning Radio Settings

With default settings WFB use radio channel 165 (5825 MHz), width 20MHz, MCS #1 (QPSK 1/2) with long GI. This provides ~7 mbit/s of effective speed (i.e. usable speed after FEC and packet encoding) for both directions in sum, because WiFi is half-duplex. So it is suitable for video down stream 720p@49fps (4 mbit/s) + two full-speed telemetry streams (uplink and downlink). If you need a higher bandwidth you can use other MCS index (for example 2 or greater)

Antennas and Diversity

FAQ

Q: What type of data can be transmitted using wfb-ng?

A: Any UDP with packet size <= 1445. For example x264 inside RTP or MAVLink.

Q: What are transmission guarantees?

A: Wifibroadcast uses FEC (forward error correction). You can tune it (both TX and RX simultaneously!) to fit your needs.

Q How far I can fly and still connect?

A It depends on your antennas and WiFi cards. With Alfa AWU036ACH and 20dBi patch antenna on the ground ~20km is possible.

:::warning Don't use band that the RC TX operates on! Or setup RTL properly to avoid model loss. :::

Q: Is only Raspberry PI supported?

A: WFB-ng is not tied to any GPU - it operates with UDP packets. But to get RTP stream you need a video encoder (which encodes raw data from camera to x264 stream), or you must use a camera with a hardware video codec like Logitech C920 or Ethernet security cameras.

What ARM Boards are Recommended for the UAV?

  • RPI3b/3b+/ZeroW. Prebuilt images are available, but it supports only h264 video for CSI cameras.

You can use any other Linux ARM board, but you need to use an Ethernet or USB camera with built-in hardware video codecs (such as Logitech C920).

Theory

connected via CSI.

connected via USB

WiFi module or any other RTL8812au card.

WiFi module or any other RTL8812au card. See for more information on supported modules.

You must also add a 470uF low ESR capacitor (like ESC has) between card +5v and ground to filter voltage spikes. You should integrate the capacitor with a custom USB cable. Without the capacitor you can get packet corruption or packet loss. Be aware of when using several ground wires.

Download Raspberry PI image from

Follow to complete installation

For simple cases you can use omnidirectional antennas with linear (that bundled with wifi cards) or circular leaf () polarization. If you want to setup long distance link you can use multiple wifi adapters with directional and omnidirectional antennas. TX/RX diversity for multiple adapters supported out of box (just add multiple NICs to /etc/default/wifibroadcast). If your WiFi adapter has two antennas (like Alfa AWU036ACH) TX diversity is implemented via . Cards with 4 ports (like Alfa AWUS1900) are currently not supported.

Jetson Nano. It supports h264 and h265 but you need to setup it yourself according to

WFB-ng puts the WiFi cards into monitor mode. This mode allows to send and receive arbitrary packets without association and waiting for ACK packets.

Raspberry Pi camera
Logitech camera C920
ALPHA AWUS036ACH
ALPHA AWUS036ACH
WFB-ng wiki > WiFi hardware
ground loop
latest wfb-ng release
Setup HOWTO
circularly polarized Coverleaf Antenna
STBC
Setup HOWTO
Analysis of Injection Capabilities and Media Access of IEEE 802.11 Hardware in Monitor Mode
802.11 timings
telemetry
WFB-ng project
libsodium
OSD
FAQ