Plane Commands in Guided Mode

This article lists the MAVLink commands that affect the movement of a Plane or QuadPlane. Normally these commands are sent by a ground station or Companion Computers often running DroneKit.

Note

The code which processes these commands can be found here in GCS_Mavlink.cpp

Movement commands

To command a plane to move to a particular lat, lon, alt send a MAV_CMD_NAV_WAYPOINT (16) within a MISSION_ITEM_INT with the following fields set as follows:

• “current” = 2 to indicate that it is a guided mode “goto” message

• “frame” = 0 or 3 for alt-above-sea-level, 6 for alt-above-home or 11 for alt-above-terrain

• “x” = longitude * 1e7

• “y” = latitude * 1e7

• “z” = altitude in meters

Examples

Here are some example commands that can be copy-pasted into MAVProxy (aka SITL) to test this command. Before running these commands:

• module load message

• create an Auto mission (“wp editor”) with a NAV_TAKEOFF command with Alt of 100m

• arm throttle

• Auto (wait until vehicle begins circling)

• GUIDED (and enter one of the commands below)

Example MAVProxy/SITL Command	Description
message MISSION_ITEM_INT 0 0 0 0 16 2 0 0 0 0 0 -353621474 1491651746 700	fly to lat,lon of -35.36,149.16 and 700m above sea level
message MISSION_ITEM_INT 0 0 0 6 16 2 0 0 0 0 0 -353621474 1491651746 100	fly to lat,lon of -35.36,149.16 and 100m above home
message MISSION_ITEM_INT 0 0 0 11 16 2 0 0 0 0 0 -353621474 1491651746 100	fly to lat,lon of -35.36,149.16 and 100m above terrain

MAV_CMDs

These MAV_CMDs can be processed if packaged within a COMMAND_LONG message

• MAV_CMD_NAV_LOITER_UNLIM : changes to Loiter mode (see Get and Set FlightMode)

• MAV_CMD_NAV_RETURN_TO_LAUNCH : changes to RTL mode (see Get and Set FlightMode)

These MAV_CMDs can be processed if packaged within a COMMAND_INT message

• MAV_CMD_DO_REPOSITION

• MAV_CMD_GUIDED_CHANGE_SPEED

• MAV_CMD_GUIDED_CHANGE_ALTITUDE

• MAV_CMD_GUIDED_CHANGE_HEADING

Position Targets

To command the altitude in any supported frame, use SET_POSITION_TARGET_GLOBAL_INT. Ensure to set the POSITION_TARGET_TYPEMASK bit 3.

To command the altitude in LOCAL frame, use SET_POSITION_TARGET_LOCAL_NED. It is currently not necessary to bother with POSITION_TARGET_TYPEMASK. The MAV_FRAME must be MAV_FRAME_LOCAL_OFFSET_NED.

No other fields in position target messages are currently supported. Use Movement commands to send a lat lon alt target.

Attitude Targets

The low level attitude of the vehicle can be controlled with SET_ATTITUDE_TARGET.