2017 2nd International Conference for Convergence in Technology (I2CT)

Drone Ground Control Station with Enhanced

Safety Features

Syed Razwanul Haque, Robi Kormokar Akhlak Uz Zaman

Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering Department of Computer Science and Engineering
Metropolitan University, Sylhet, Bangladesh Metropolitan University, Sylhet, Bangladesh
{razwan,robi}@metrouni.edu.bd [email protected]

Abstract— ‘Drone Ground Control Station’ is a system for The software receives telemetry data and weather information
controlling and monitoring Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) or from on-board sensors in drone via telemetry link as well as
Drone from any remote place. In existing nonmilitary drone collects weather and terrain information of the drone’s fly region
ground control stations, the software can only present the from internet. Moreover, the ground control station software
telemetry data and control parameters from drone, which do not remains connected with some sensors in the ground control
ensure the safety of an on flight drone from crashing due to bad station which give supplementary support so that pilot can be
weather and other facts. Moreover, the software and the control alert about any unavoidable fly risk. A microcontroller is used
unit of these ground control stations are not customizable. This as the hardware unit’s heart of the ground control station to make
paper is about a drone control station which incorporates a the hardware unit more customizable. The control input system
hardware system for establishing secured communication with
used in the proposed ground control station is a totally
drone and a software for presenting the telemetry data as well as
the important weather parameters and no fly zones of a region in
customized electronic device which is capable of taking pilot’s
which the drone will fly. A microcontroller is used in the hardware control inputs from nine different channels simultaneously. For
unit for central controlling of the ground control station. It is establishing telemetry link between ground control station and
possible to interface any customized physical control unit like drone, MAVLink [2] (Micro Aerial Vehicle Link)
joystick with the ground control station software. The communication protocol is used. Because it is the most secure
communication between drone and the ground station is and reliable protocol for drone’s telemetry communication and
established by MAVLink, a widely used communication protocol being used in most of the commercial drone flight controllers
for drone. The proposed design of the system was tested by several like Ardupilot [9], MultiWii [14] etc.
dummy and real test flights of drone, which makes it reliable for
using in any nonmilitary drone operations. However, there are lots of drone control station systems for
military drone operations which incorporates many of the
Keywords—UAV; GCS; MAVLink; Software; Weather features discussed above. But these systems are classified and
Parameter; Telemetry; ECC. not in reach to commercial and nonmilitary drone operators.
This paper also emphasis on such a drone control station for
I. INTRODUCTION nonmilitary drone purposes.
Drone ground control station is a system in combination of a
II. EXISTING NONMILITARY DRONE GROOUND CONTROL
hardware and a software unit which works like a real airplane
STATIONS VS PROPOSED SYSTEM
cockpit. The hardware could be a joystick or other electronic
device which takes pilot’s command and send them to drone via The basic architecture of most nonmilitary drone control
any radio transmitter. The software collects telemetry data from stations comprise the following parts-
drone via any communication module like 3DR radio [10] and
x Hardware: The hardware section is combination of
shows them to a user interface, so that drone pilot can get aware
electronic devices that play roles for taking pilot’s
about the current state of drone. However, unlike real cockpit, a
control inputs and establishing a communication
drone pilot totally depends on the telemetry data to control a
between the ground control station and drone. The
drone properly and safely. The telemetry data usually contains
pilot’s control input system could be a joystick or any
GPS location, altitude, heading, IMU data, mission state, etc.
other electronic devices for interfacing the pilots
But there are some other important factors like weather, UV
controlling gesture with radio transmitter. Most of the
index, wind speed, air quality, magnetic field disturbance etc.
existing systems uses 3DR radio module, WIFI module
which should be taken into account to avoid any undesired drone
etc. for establishing telemetry link between drone and
crash. Also there are lots of no fly zones defined by civil aviation
the ground control station. The telemetry modules
authorities for nonmilitary drone operations where a drone
remain connected directly with the ground control
should not enter. But, the existing nonmilitary drone ground
station software for representation of the telemetry
control station software do not include these factors. The ground
data.
control station software proposed in this paper incorporates
these factor so that any undesired crash of drone can be ignored.

978-1-5090-4307-1/17/$31.00 ©2017 IEEE 1207

 x Software: The software is a user interface for a drone divided into two major units: (A) Hardware unit, (B) Software
pilot to visualize some control parameters and the unit.
telemetry data from drone. The software remains
linked directly with the telemetry module for A. Hardware Unit:
communicating with drone. The user interface usually
looks like a real airplane cockpit to give the pilot real The design of the hardware unit incorporates the following
life feelings. The software presents the telemetry data subunits-
coming from drone like the GPS location, altitude, 1) Microcontroller Board: This is the central part of the
vertical velocity, horizontal velocity, heading, roll, hardware unit which acts like a bridge and establishes an
pitch, yaw, flight mode etc. in a single interface, which interface among the other sub-sections of the hardware unit and
defines the drones current state and physical condition. the software. The microcontroller used in the proposed system
The software also contains several settings for is ATMEGA2560 embedded in an Arduino mega board [5]. It is
modifying drone’s IMU sensor calibration, an 8-bit microcontroller with built in analog to digital converters
magnetometer calibration, radio calibration, flight (ADC), Timers, Digital I/O pins etc. The microcontroller is able
mode etc. to communicate with other devices by using serial, I2C and SPI
In existing nonmilitary drone ground control stations like Q communication protocols. In this system, the microcontroller
Ground Control Station (QGCS) [11], Mission Planner [10], uses its two of its serial ports for communicating with software
APM Planner [12] etc. the software is able to be linked with only as well as with the telemetry link. In addition, the
some common systems like joystick, gamepad etc. These microcontroller is interfaced with the control input system for
systems are very hard to modify by any normal user and transferring the pilot’s control data into the software. It is
increasing of the number of channels of these control systems programmed in such a way that any customized control input
are almost impossible. Besides the telemetry data, the software system could be interfaced with it. Additionally, the
are unable of showing any other parameters like weather data, microcontroller is able to read various sensors data for different
drone temperature or any other supplementary sensor data, purposes and to send them to the software for visualization. The
which are also important for a safe drone flight. Since, the language that was used to program the microcontroller is C++
telemetry module in these systems remains connected directly and the coding environment was Arduino [5].
with the software, no intelligence can be provided in between 2) Control Input System: The control input system in the
the software and the telemetry module. As a result, drones proposed design is handmade with several electronic
controlled by these systems could fall into an invisible risk of components like variable resistors, toggle switch etc. For
hacking by any third party remote operator. throttle, roll, pitch, yaw and camera rotation control of drone,
In the proposed system of drone ground control station, the joysticks from a RC remote is used. Some toggle switches are
hardware part is not a readymade control input system like a comprised in the system for changing the mission mode of
joystick or gamepad. Rather, it is a microcontroller based drone, releasing payload and camera shutter control. All the
customized control input system which can easily be modified joysticks and the toggle switches are interfaced with a
by a user. The microcontroller acts like a bridge among the microcontroller which converts the analog voltages into PPM
software, telemetry module and the control input devices. The (Pulse Position Modulation) signal. The PPM signal then goes
main control algorithm is coded in the microcontroller rather to a radio transmitter by a wired interface and the transmitter
than software because, software always depends on computer then sends the PPM signal data to the drone by radio
and operating system and if the computer fails to operate due to transmission. The system is designed in such a way that the
power failure or get affected by any third party operator, then the radio transmitter could be placed far from the main control
whole ground control station will crash. The microcontroller is section of the ground control station. This is done so that the
programmed in such a way that any other sensors can be added
transmitter could be placed outside of building to get longer
for monitoring the ground control station’s and local weather
communication range. A filtering system is used at the
conditions. As a result, the software becomes able to visualize
not only the telemetry data of drone but also the state (e.g. transmitter end to ensure an undistorted PPM signal. The
system voltage, temperature, fire alarm, power backup condition control input system communicates with the main
etc.) of the whole ground control station as well as the local microcontroller board of the system to send the control data to
weather data by using only a single communication bus. Besides the software for visualization. By visualizing these control data,
these data, the software is also able to show different weather a pilot can be ensured that his/her controlling system is working
parameters from internet and supplementary sensor data from properly.
drone to ensure a safe drone operation.
3) Telemetry Module: Telemetry module is a transceiver which
III. SYSTEM DESIGN OF THE PROPOSED DRONE GROUND receives and sends telemetry data to the drone. The telemetry
CONTROL STATION modules used in the proposed system is a pair of radio modules
The system design of the proposed drone ground control with each has a unique device ID. To ensure secured
station contains some unique features that are usually not communication, the one of the pair communicates with the
available in nonmilitary drone ground control stations. The other of the pair after the verification of the device ID of the
system design of the proposed ground control station can be other side. The telemetry module uses MAVLink
communication protocol for communicating with the other.

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MAVLink communication protocol is a secured point-to-point
communication protocol that allows two entities to exchange
information. It is used for bidirectional communications
between drone and ground control station. A MAVLink
message is sent bytewise over the communication protocol
channel, followed by a checksum error correction. If the
checksum does not match, then it means that the message is
corrupted and will be discarded. Fig. 1 shows the structure of a
MAVLink message.

4) Sensor Unit: The sensor unit of the proposed ground control

system contains various types of sensors like temperature
sensor, voltage monitor sensor and humidity sensor etc. for
getting the state of the ground control station and weather
condition. The implementation of sensors for collecting local
weather data is a unique feature of the proposed system.
Because the real time weather data help the pilot for making any
preflight or on flight decision, which is not available in any
conventional nonmilitary drone control system.

B. Software Unit:
Fig. 2 The activity diagram of software

The software unit in the proposed system is a user interface The system diagram of the ground control station is illustrated
which is designed like a real airplane cockpit for showing the in Fig. 3.
necessary data of a drone flight. The software communicates
with the main microcontroller board via serial communication IV. TESTING AND RESULTS
with a baud rate of 57600 and shows the telemetry data, sensors Testing of the proposed ground control system was done by
data and the control parameters that are connected with the dummy drone flight as well as by several real drone flights. The
microcontroller board. The software’s user interface is divided dummy drone flight test of the system was done by a dummy
into three major parts. (1) Telemetry data unit, (2) Serial data drone made by PIXHAWK flight controller [13] interfaced with
unit, and (3) Map view. The software shows the telemetry data GPS, 433MHz 3DR telemetry module, compass, and servo
that comes from the drone and receives by the telemetry module motor. The test results of the dummy test flight incorporate the
in the ground control station. The serial data part is for showing successful arrival of the MAVLink packet data from drone to the
the sensor data of the ground control station. And the Map view software and successful control of drone by the system. The
is for showing the drone’s current position, weather conditions operation of the software’s telemetry unit while testing is
etc. The map view is a customized view of the google map for illustrated in Fig. 4. Telemetry data error rate was calculated by
presenting the weather conditions of the flight zone and for comparing the flight data log and the software data log with ECC
indicating any no fly zone. The software uses the weather parameter enabled [10]. The result of the telemetry data error
information API (Application Programmed Interface) of the
www.wunderground.com and the www.openweather.com for
getting the weather parameters from internet. There are also
some other settings options for calibrating the control unit of
the ground control station and drones control system. This
software also has some options for sending mission change
mode and payload release command to the drone directly from
the software. The basic structure of the software is made by C#
language and the environment was Microsoft Visual Studio.
JSON parsing method is used for getting weather data from
server. HTML and PHP is used to embed the map view with the
software. The Activity diagram of the software is illustrated in
Fig. 2.

Fig. 3 The system diagram of the ground control station

Fig. 1 MAVLink message packet structure

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 Fig. 4 Telemetry and Serial Data Unit of the software Fig. 6 Real photo of the ground control station

rate was almost 5% when communication was made between ACKNOWLEDGMENT

drone and the ground control system within 1 km. The map view The Innovation Laboratory of Metropolitan University,
loaded successfully and the weather data also fetched by the Sylhet, Bangladesh is acknowledged for providing the necessary
software successfully from internet. The weather data was then financial and instrumental support. Also the students of the
verified by comparing with real weather conditions and with the university deserve thanks for helping by taking the dummy
weather data from local sensors. The map view incorporated drone in various remote places while testing of the ground
with the weather information is shown in Fig. 5. control system.
A real photo of the whole ground control station while REFERENCES
dummy flight test is shown in Fig. 6.
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