The so-called drone remote control is like the TV remote control, air conditioner remote control can not touch the controlled equipment, but through a handheld device, using the radio to communicate with the controlled equipment, so as to achieve the control of the equipment. Remote is a long distance, control is to control the equipment, the device refers to an electronic device.

The remote control wants to achieve the function of communication with the drone needs to have two parts to cooperate to complete. That is: transmitter and receiver. The control lever on the remote control is converted into radio waves and sent to the receiver, and the receiver receives the radio waves, reads the readings of the control lever on the remote control, and converts them into digital signals and sends them to the controller of the drone.

Wireless communication

At present, the mainstream radio frequency used for drone remote control is 2.4G, the wavelength of such radio wave is longer, and the communication distance can be farther, the communication distance between the ordinary 2.4G remote control and the receiver is about 1km or less in the open place. 2.4GHz wireless technology has become the mainstream transmission technology of wireless products. The so-called 2.4GHz refers to a working frequency band 2400M-2483M range, this frequency band is the whole world application-free use. Common Wifi, Bluetooth, ZigBee are using the 2.4G frequency band. Wifi, Bluetooth, Zigbee are all based on 2.4GHz, but they use different protocols, resulting in different transmission rates, so the scope of application is different. The same is the use of 2.4G frequency as a carrier, but different communication protocols derived from the communication method will have a world of difference; only in the transmission of data, there are from 1M per second to 100M per second difference.

Because of the radio waves in the transmission process may be subject to interference or data loss and other issues, when the receiver can not receive the transmitter’s data, usually will enter the protection state, that is, still send control signals to the drone, this time the signal is the receiver to receive the remote control transmitter’s last valid data. The number of protected data thus sent due to signal loss is usually called failafe data.

Data Protocol

There are also many different protocols for communication between the remote control and the drone, the common data protocols are as follows:

1.pwm: you need to connect all the pwm output channels on the receiver, each channel should be connected to a set of wires, and the parsing program needs to calculate the channel value according to the pwm high level duration of each channel.

2. ppm: send all channels pwm pulse width data format according to a fixed period, a set of wires, send all channels pwm value in a period, the parsing program needs to distinguish the pwm duration of each channel by itself.

3. sbus: every 11 bit represents a channel value protocol, serial communication, but sbus receiver is usually reverse level, connect to the UAV need to connect to the level reverser, most of the flight control board to support sbus has integrated the reverser, directly connect to the flight controller with the old for the new machine can be.

4. xbus: conventional communication protocol, supports 18 channels, larger packets, serial communication has two modes, which can be configured in the configuration options of the remote control. The receiver does not need to do special configuration.

Auxiliary channels

For the 4 control levers in the main control panel correspond to throttle, heading, roll and pitch respectively. In addition to these 4 main control channels, the remote control has some other control levers or control knobs. Used to give the user their own definition. These auxiliary channels do not make any difference in principle, they are usually used as switches for some special functions of the drone, such as the control of the gimbal attitude, or the control of the camera shutter, or the control of other function switches and so on. The readings of these auxiliary channels are sent from the remote control to the receiver, which sends them to the drone controller, which then determines how much of the auxiliary channel is controlled by the drone to control which function.

Recommended Drone Remote Control

The Skydroid H30 is a high-performance ground control station designed for drone operation. It combines an advanced processor, stable tri-band transmission, a large HD display, and extensive interface support, making it an ideal choice for drone operators.