Using WiFi instead of RC for drone

[lukarao]

Is it possible to use WiFi communication (specifically, ESP-NOW) instead of RC transmitters/receivers to control a madflight drone? Also, unrelated question, but is madflight compatable with an ESP32-CAM?

[qqqlab]

Yes, you could use ESP-NOW but you would have to program the corresponding rcl gizmo for it.... I've build a ESP-NOW rc remote but never integrated into madflight...

You could use madflight on a ESP32-CAM board, but it will get tricky to get both camera and madflight running at the same time.

[qqqlab]

Capturing camera data, streaming video and rc commands/telemetry over wifi, and keeping a drone flying at the same time might be pushing the boundaries of the processor. The ESP32S3 will be better, if I remember it correctly the ESP32 CAM needs CPU time to cleanup the DMA video data and the ESP32S3 not.

[lukarao]

How can I override rcl with controls only coming from within the flight controller (autonomous behavior)? Would I still have to create an rcl gizmo or is there another way?

[qqqlab]

Have a look at the examples and search for "rcl." That should hopefully explain how to override the remote control commands.

[lukarao]

Ok, I've been looking at the code and I understand how I can override rcl commands. However, I wonder if not connecting an RC receiver/transmitter to the flight controller will cause problems with madflight (for example, during initialization). Will this be a problem? Is there a setting to ignore this?

[qqqlab]

The default config is "no radio" unless you specify it with the rcl_gizmo config setting. So yes, it will work without a radio. Just upload "helloworld" to a bare esp32 board and watch the console output.