Cruise / Maneuvering in flight

Flying Manually (RC/Joystick)

Auterion Mission Control significantly improves the safety and ease of manual flight.

Mission Control is commonly used in controllers that combine both ground station and physical joysticks. On-screen "virtual joysticks" can be enabled to fly manually on devices without physical sticks (or a completely separate RC or joystick controller can be used).

Mission Control can be used to:

  • Fly using two physical joysticks.

  • Configure the controller mode (choose what functions are assigned to different stick movements).

  • Monitor the flight (including its state) using the map and vehicle telemetry.

  • Take off, return home, and land using automated modes. These can be triggered from the fly tools or by assigning the actions to physical buttons on the controller.

  • Transition the aircraft between multicopter and fixed-wing modes using the VTOL status icon.

  • Track a particular target with the camera (region of interest).

Manual Flight Modes

Mission Control allows you to select either of the two safest and easiest flight modes supported by PX4: Position mode and Altitude mode.

The manual modes can be enabled using the mode selector as shown.

Stick Functions

Two control sticks control the aircraft's movement during manual flight. The action of each stick in a particular flight mode depends on how the actions are mapped to sticks/stick movements (controller mode).

Position Mode and Altitude modes have the same intuitive flight controls, which make it simple to understand how the vehicle is expected to move. The controls make it impossible to flip or roll the aircraft, and easy to recover stability in the event of any problem. The only difference between the modes is the behavior when sticks are centered.

An overview of the default Position mode stick functions for multicopter and fixed-wing are provided below. The Firebird™ uses both mappings, depending on whether flying as a rotor or fixed-wing vehicle.

Mission Control uses the popular controller mode 2 stick layout by default. When using a Joystick, the mode can be changed under Vehicle Settings > Joystick.

Multicopter (Mode 2)

Centered sticks: The Firebird™ under multicopter mode will actively brake, level, and be locked to a position in 3D space — compensating for wind and other forces.

Fixed-Wing (Mode 2)

Centered sticks: The Firebird™ under fixed-wing mode will level out and hold its straight-line path. It will resist being moved off this track in order to compensate for wind and other forces.

Arming/Disarming

The aircraft has moving parts that are potentially dangerous when powered, in particular, motors and propellers! Therefore, to minimize the time when a landed vehicle has powered motors PX4 supports the concepts of explicitly arming a vehicle before takeoff and disarming it shortly after landing.

Arming may be dependent on a physical safety switch being engaged on the vehicle. This is commonly integrated into the GPS unit, but may also be separate.

Arming/disarming may be triggered in accord to the following methods:

  • Takeoff and arm using the Takeoff button: Fly View > Fly Tool.

  • Select the Armed/Disarmed status indicator in the Fly View > Vehicle Status Indicators.

  • Use a dedicated arming button on the controller (if assigned).

  • Use a stick gesture (if the arming button is not defined). For mode 2 controllers this is:

    • Arm: Left stick at the bottom right.

    • Disarm: Left stick at the bottom left.

For more information see Prearm, Arm, Disarm Configuration (PX4 User Guide)

Takeoff

The easiest way to take off is usually to use the automatic Takeoff mode. The aircraft will simply take off to a preset altitude and loiter.

Takeoff mode can be triggered using:

  • Takeoff tool: Fly View > Fly Tools.

  • A dedicated button on the controller (if assigned).

Alternatively, you can use Position Mode to take off manually:

Arm, then raise the altitude stick.

VTOL Transition

Use the VTOL button in the left toolbar to toggle between multicopter and fixed-wing flight.

Return and/or Land

Most of the time you will want to use Return Mode to fly back to the launch point and land.

Return mode can be triggered using:

  • Return tool: Fly View > Fly Tools.

  • A dedicated button on the controller (if assigned).

Point of Interest (Position Mode)

Users can set a Point Of Interest (POI) on the map in fly view. The camera will then track this ROI when flying in position mode (only).

To set the POI:

  1. Ensure you are flying (the POI cannot be set when landed)

  2. Press the POI button on the left Toolstrip.

  3. Select the target location for the POI on the map.

  4. Acknowledge the confirmation prompt

Mission Control will then add a POI marker at the selected position, and mark the POI status icon (application top bar) green ("enabled").

Note that the POI isn't enabled until the vehicle is in position mode!

To remove a POI, select the POI status icon in the toolbar and select the popup option Disable POI.

Last updated