Allow one-step upload of .bin files to droneshare

[rmackay9]

The opensource dev team (Randy, Tridge, etc) would like to improve the quality of the log files uploaded to droneshare to allow better datamining so that we can proactively catch hardware and software issues.

One part of that would be to make it easier for users to upload binary log files to droneshare by making it a one-step process, perhaps as part of downloading the binary log file. Maybe have a checkbox, "Upload to droneshare" on the download screen.

Here is the related droneshare issue. dronekit/droneshare#141

[m4gr3d]

@rmackay9 where can I find some info on the process used to initiate the bin log files download over mavlink?

[rmackay9]

Freddy,
There's some info on the log messages used on the MAVlink page: http://mavlink.org/messages/common#LOG_REQUEST_LIST.

I think the flow is something like:

1. GCS requests the full list of logs from ardupilot using LOG_REQUEST_LIST
2. ardupilot responds with a LOG_ENTRY message for each log it has. I think the GCS builds up a list of Log numbers (i.e. LOG_ENTRY message's "id") and their sizes (i.e. LOG_ENTRY msg's count). The GCS knows it's received the full list when the LOG_ENTRY msg's "id" = "last_log_num".
3. the GCS displays the list of possible logs (possibly along side the "time_utc" and "size") for the user to choose which to download.
4. the GCS requests the log data from ardupilot by sending it a LOG_REQUEST_DATA message with the id (taken from the user). I think it would start with the "ofs" = 0 and "count" = number of bytes to retrieve and can't be larger than 90. It might be possible to send more than one of these at a time (I'm not sure).
5. ardupilot responds with a LOG_DATA message which should match the "id", "ofs" and "count" from step 4 (above).
6. GCS & ardupilot repeat steps 4 and 5 until the log is completely downloaded.
   If the GCS notices that it didn't get a reply to a LOG_REQUEST_DATA message it should resend.

In the ardupilot code I can see the definitions of the methods that handle these log related mavlink messages:
https://github.com/diydrones/ardupilot/blob/master/libraries/GCS_MAVLink/GCS.h#L255
https://github.com/diydrones/ardupilot/blob/master/libraries/GCS_MAVLink/GCS_Logs.cpp#L31

Mission planner and APPlanner2 implement the GCS side of this already but I'm very unsure of where the code would be.

Hope this helps some.

[phmagic]

How long would the bin files take to download over 3DR Radio?

Would this be a function that only works with a USB / Wi-Fi connection?

[rmackay9]

I think they would be extremely slow over a 3dr radio. Many minutes for a normal log would be my guess.