Experimental Flight
The easiest drone to fly with paparazzi is the Bebop 2, from Parrot. It is no longer produced but can still be found 2nd hand.
Using the Bebop 2 with Paparazzi
Make sure to have a bebop with at least firmware v3.3.0. Update it from FreeFlight pro if needed.
Start the Paparazzi Center (or Stop/remove all processes)
Select the bebop2 A/C and build it for the ap target
Power up the Bebop
Connect your laptop to the Bebop’s wifi network
Press the on/off button 4 times
Press the “Upload” button and wait. The messages in the console should end with “DONE”
Select the Flight UDP/Wifi session, then execute.
You should get the telemetry from the bebop.
Making the changes permanent
In the current state, you have to do the process all over again every time you restart the Bebop. However, you can start Paparazzi by default with the following steps:
Power up the Bebop
Connect your laptop to the Bebop’s wifi network
Press the on/off button 4 times
Open a terminal and go to
paparazzi/sw/tools/parrot
Launch ./bebop.py status
. You should get the current status of the drone’s configuration. If it does not work, you may need to add the --host
argument with the drone’s IP address like so: ./bebop.py --host 192.168.1.15 status
.
Note
The default IP address of the bebop is 192.168.42.1
. In this case, you don’t need the --host
argument.
Install the autostart script with ./bebop.py install_autostart
.
Change network settings
You can change the network settings of the drone to make it connect to an existing WiFi network: ./bebop.py configure_network mySSID managed dhcp
. You can replace dhcp
by a fixed IP address to use static IP instead of getting the address from your external router DHCP in managed
mode.
Calibration
The default values may be good enough to be able to fly, but it is recommanded that you calibrate the drone before flying. Go to the Sensor Calibration page to learn how to do that.
Connect a Joystick
Note
This part is optionnal but it is recommended to connect a joystick to have an easy way to control your drone, if something unexpected should happen.
Learn how to connect a joystick to your laptop to control your drone on this page: Use a Joystick