The CX-10wifi is a cheap wifi controlled drone. It creates an open wifi network, to which you can then attach your phone, and using the downloadable app, control the drone.
Well, as expected, my phone is too old to be used effectively with the CX-10wifi app – it does not overlay the graphics over the video from the drone, so kind of difficult to hit the calibrate button before takeoff!!
There is quite a lot of info about controlling the RF controlled version (e.g. Control your Drone from a Computer ), but not too much on the wifi controlled varieties. However, i did find this Wifi China Drone Controller on github.
Running a varied network at home, I happened to have a BTHHV2A running OpenWRT (LEDE actually) which was not using it’s wireless connection.
So I asked the homehub to connect to the CX-10 wireless, and route traffic onto my LAN.
The CX-10 has a constant IP address of 172.16.10.1, and gives out a (random?) dhcp address to devices that connect to it.
Turns out that the java control app is happy to talk to the drone via my home network; so this opens up all sorts of autonomous possibilities; even controlling over the internet ! The github source is fairly complete, enough to extract the protocols from, and even covers video delivery….
I’ll update as I play more.
btsimonh 