minidrone

Parrot Minidrone

The Minidrone from Parrot uses a Bluetooth interface and programming API.

You can use TinyGo Bluetooth to control the drone from your notebook computer.

What you need

- Parrot Minidrone
- Personal computer with Go 1.20+ installed
- Works on Linux, macOS, or Windows

Do you have a Badger20400-W? You can also use it to control your drone using the Flightbadge firmware! Look in the tutorials directory in the repo for your specific badge.

Installation

The code in this activity code uses the TinyGo Bluetooth package http://tinygo.org/bluetooth

It also uses the https://github.com/hybridgroup/tinygo-minidrone package which is where the code wrappers for the Parrot Minidrone Bluetooth API are located.

Change directories into this directory where the needed Go modules files are located, and all dependencies will be installed.

Running the code

When you run any of these examples, you will compile and execute the code on your computer. When you are running the program, you will be communicating with the Minidrone using the Bluetooth interface.

On Linux and Windows you will use the MAC address of the device to connect.

On macOS you must use the Bluetooth ID of the device to connect.

Therefore, you must know the correct name and then MAC address or ID for that device in order to connect to it.

The name of the drone should be listed on the side of it.

To find out the unique MAC address or Bluetooth ID for a device, you can use the Bluetooth scanner located in the tools directory of this repo.

First, change so the current directory is the tools directory:

cd tools

Then, run the Bluetooth scanner command:

go run ./blescanner

Code

step01/main.go

Let's start with a simple takeoff, and then land. Make sure the drone is turned on and you know the correct MAC address or name, then run the code.

go run ./step1/main.go [MAC address or Bluetooth ID]

---

step02/main.go

The drone will hover and return some flight data info. Run this code:

go run ./step2/main.go [MAC address or Bluetooth ID]

---

step03/main.go

The drone can move forward, backward, to the right, and the left, all while maintaining a steady altitude. Run the code.

go run ./step3/main.go [MAC address or Bluetooth ID]

---

step04/main.go

The drone can perform flips while flying. Run the code.

go run ./step4/main.go [MAC address or Bluetooth ID]

---

step05/main.go

Now it is time for free flight, controlled by you, the human pilot. Plug in the DS3 controller to your computer. The controls are as follows:

• Triangle - Takeoff
• X - Land
• Left stick - altitude
• Right stick - direction

IMPORTANT NOTE: you must press the "P3" button when your program first runs for the "clone" DS3 joysticks we are using to fully turn on.

macOS

go run ./step5/main.go [Bluetooth ID]

Linux

go run step5/main.go [MAC address]

Windows:

go run ./step5/main.go [MAC address]

---

---

keyboard/main.go

Control the Minidrone with your keyboard!

• [, ] control take off and landing
• w, s, a, d control moving forward, backward, strafe left, and strafe right
• i, k, j, l control moving up, down, turning counter clockwise, and clockwise
• t, g, f, h control front flip, back flip, left flip, right flip
• r stop all movement on the minidrone to allow it to simply hover

What now?

Try adding some new features to the https://github.com/hybridgroup/tinygo-mip repo. There are a number of interesting unimplemented API functions to explore!