1. Qgroundcontrol …and Sentera’s journey into open source drone software
Todd Colten
Chief Aeronautical Engineer
Sentera, Inc.

2. The leading supplier of integrated agricultural remote sensing solutions for in-season management.

3. Todd’s background Aircraft designer and unmanned systems engineer
(Co-founder)
Aircraft designer and unmanned systems engineer
Developing drones since 2001
Deep experience with customers and end-users

4. Some of the drones I’ve worked on

5. Ground station software: the primary user interface

6. Qgroundcontrol at a glance
Open source
Qt based
Cross platform:
Windows
Mac OS X
Ubuntu Linux
Android
iOS

7. Sentera’s start with open source
Proprietary autopilots and software no longer a discriminator in the market. …and became cost prohibitive.
Ground up development is cost prohibitive.
Sentera has always believed open, reliable, and standards-based drone software are required for the industry to grow.
MAVlink seemed to be catching on as a standard.
Qgroundcontrol version 3: Finally an open source software with a visually appealing interface!
Okay, maybe its time to give open source a try.

8. A brief* history of Qgroundcontrol
* Very brief. If you want to know more, ask the experts!

9. Buy engineers, for engineers!
Original QGC:
Buy engineers, for engineers!
(image credit: Lorenz Meier)

10. Qt based, open architecture spawned lots of different custom versions and branches over the years.

11. Current release of Qgroundcontrol.
Relatively simple and easy to use.
Still a lot of capability.

12. Flexible plugin architecture
Sentera Ground Control
Custom vehicle plugin
Custom App plugin
Autopilot specific plugins (included with QGC)
and others…
MAVlink Generic (QGC core)

15. NATO Parallels
NATO Standardization Agreement: STANAG 4586, UAV control and communications standard.
Vehicle Specific Module (VSM)
STANAG 4586 Unmanned Control System (Core UCS)
Autopilot specific plugins (included with QGC)
MAVlink Generic (QGC core)

16. Engaging the open source community
At first:
Sentera started by looking at Qgroundcontrol and making a list of features we needed/wanted.
We wrote requirements documents, statements of work, requests for quote, etc. Lots of work for Sentera.
…. and got minimal response from the open source community.
Then:
We learned to engage on public and semi-public forums and discussion groups.
Much faster responses!

17. How we learned to communicate
Public and semi-public forums:
PX4 Discuss Forums:
PX4 Slack Channels:
PX4 Github, detailed working discussions:

18. slack

19. Discuss

20. github

21. Example: Fixed Wing Landing Pattern
Sentera sketch (2017):
Fixed Wing Landing Pattern
currently in Qgroundcontrol:
Example: Fixed Wing Landing Pattern
Github and public forums contained other user posts requesting something similar.

22. Focus on user experienceUX
Sentera’s emphasis is reliability, safety, and ease of use.
More than any new feature, reliability and ease of use is the most important contributor to user experience.
The general user doesn’t know or care about the difference between Qgroundcontrol and the autopilot firmware.

23. UX “opportunities” for Qgroundcontrol and MAVlink
MAVlink specification can be extended to include more UX friendly features.
More “Status” and “Sync” framework can enable better UI and UX.

24. A different kind of standards
Ideally, common UI language around ground stations will evolve.
Example:
Airplane cockpits, deliberately follow a common language
Better Example:
Automotive dashboards, everyone instantly knows!

25. Some lessons learned
Open source development communities operate differently than traditional business-to-business commercial relationships.
Collaborative and consensus based.
Working the open source way allowed us to explore the use of these programs without a large financial commitment.
“Sharing” our work can be more powerful than “owning” our work.

26. “Upstream” Give back a little, Get back a lot. Qgroundcontrol Sentera
Custom Branch
Give back a little,
Get back a lot.

27. Special Thanks Don Gagne Gus Grubba Daniel Agar James Goppert
Lorenz Meier
…and everyone else who has contributed to open source Qgroundcontrol

28. Thank you Qgroundcontrol can always use more contributors.
There is opportunity for you to get involved!