Master Solo Drone Servo Control with Arduino: Easy Setup & Sweep Tutorial

About this project

Intro

Solo has a great development environment but a lack of I/O. Currently the Accessory port breaks out CAN, Mavlink Serial to Pixhawk, and USB to Sololink(imx6). By using an arduino and firmata can add custom sensors, control servos, blink LEDs, or any other arduino function. 

This tutorial will walk you through the steps of using an arduino with Solo to control a servo. 

Software Preqs:

• Solo update 1.2.0 or greater
• Arduino IDE
• Filezilla
• Putty or any other SSH Client

Step 1: Upload Firmata Host to Arduino Uno

Open StandardFirmata from the examples tab. Select board and port. Upload!  

Step 2: Hardware Setup

Parts

Note: The breakout board is not sold at this point. Please refer to here

Assembly

Power on

Step 2: Download pyMata and Code

pyMata

Step 3: Transfer Files to Solo

• Connect to your Solo's Wifi network!

Step 4: SSH into Solo

SSH into Solo using your OS's SSH client. For Windows we will use Putty.

Make sure you are still connected to Solo's Wifi!

See the photos captions for more details

Step 5: Install pyMata

Run this command in your SSH session:

This should be your result

Step 7: Run the example

While your ssh session is still open run:

Code

• SoloServoSweep.py

SoloServoSweep.pyPython

from PyMata.pymata import PyMata
import time
import sys

SERVO_MOTOR = 9  # servo attached to this pin

END = 170 # Max servo travel

# create a PyMata instance
board = PyMata("/dev/ttyACM0")

# configure pin as servo
board.servo_config(SERVO_MOTOR)

try:
    while True:
        for i in range (0,END):
            # sweep up
            board.analog_write(SERVO_MOTOR, i)
            time.sleep(.015)
        for i in range (END,0,-1):
            # sweep down
            board.analog_write(SERVO_MOTOR, i)
            time.sleep(.015)

except KeyboardInterrupt:
    board.close()
    sys.exit()

Custom parts and enclosures

Solo Breakout Board

Schematics