Mavlink questions and documentation

ANAFI USA / ANAFI Thermal / ANAFI 4K
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Hi, I’m having some success controlling an Anafi from Mavlink, but to go further I’d love to have some feedback. I actually have several distinct questions.

  1. I already have some experience with Mavlink, that’s why I went down this route. It looks you’re promoting Olympe. Is using the Olympe SDK more powerful feature-wise than sending “raw”/“crafted” Mavlink-messages? (i.e. would it support more commands or features?)

  2. I’m currently sending commands from my laptop, when it is connected to the drone Wi-Fi network. It seems however that the SkyController has a better range than my laptop’s Wi-Fi chip. Is there a way I can have the SkyController transmit those commands frames for me (e.g. by somhow plugging the SkyController as a USB device on my computer?)

  3. Also, I would love reading some doc on how Mavlink is implemented/handled by the Anafi. Specifically, is there a definitive list of commands/flags executed by Anafis?
    I’ve found this great message, but I’m not sure if it is still up-to-date for Anafis (for example, maybe I haven’t tried hard enough, but I could not land using MAV_CMD_NAV_LAND, but only by using SET_MODE to a custom/not-documented mode number).

  4. Also, I’ve read that the Anafi Mavlink implementation is based on QGroundControl. I am using it and scrutinizing the messages it is sending. Which version should I be using for this? For instance, my QGroundControl (v4.2.8) cannot change the drone altitude (an error message displays this is not supported).

  5. Is the Anafi supporting the MAV_FRAME_BODY_FRD frame? I tried to MAV_CMD_DO_REPOSITION to (0, 0, 1) with this BODY frame, expecting my drone to move 1m vertically. It looks like (before it crashed on my wall), it tried to fly to Null Island instead :-/

  6. (Apart from Sphinx), is there a SITL simulator that reacts the very same way as actual Anafis? I don’t have a Linux machine with the required specs to install Sphinx. Also, I don’t need any GUI. Any “Sphinx-lite” software, or something like Ardupilot (but with the Anafi Mavlink implementation) would suit me.

Thank you very much!
I’d be very happy that you could provide me some documentation for this. Currently, trying to control an Anafi drone with Mavlink messages is somehow frustrating :smiley:

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I’ve finally switched to using Olympe messages, because they’re way more documented, and really easy to use.

However, I’m still interested to know more about the Mavlink support of Anafi drones :smiley:

Thanks

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