Installing Drone Engage RPI-WZero2 / RPI-4 from Binaries

System installation is straightforward, requiring a functional Raspberry Pi with SSH access. Raspberry Pi OS can be downloaded from the official website. Drone-Engage software packages are available here.

Users wishing to build binaries themselves should consult Building DroneEngage Code.

The following video describes installation procedures. It may differ from version to another, but the video includes the main steps.

Preparing Raspberry

Please use Raspberry Pi OS (bullseye) 64-bit to run compiled binaries of DroneEngage. You can still compile your code on other versions check Building DroneEngage Code.

The following steps assume that you know how to install a raspberry-pi and have a raspberry-pi board up and running and accessible using SSH.

Important

You need to execute this script also to install libcrypto_1.1 install_libcrypto_1.1.sh the installation script will install it for you and may ask you to re-run the installion script again.

Download Binaries

Binaries are available at Binaries Download and are ordered by date. There is a version for each application. i.e. de_comm may have a different version than de_mavlink as each one has its own fixed and updates.

$ ssh pi@raspberrypi.local

$ wget https://cloud.ardupilot.org/downloads/RPI/Latest/64bit/Drone_Engage_05Mar_2025.zip
$ wget https://cloud.ardupilot.org/downloads/RPI/Latest/64bit_camera/Drone_Engage_Camera_25Feb_2025.zip

Please check https://cloud.ardupilot.org/downloads/RPI/Latest/ to download latest version.*

Now you can see two scripts:

install_droneengage.sh for telemetry.
install_droneengage_camera.sh for camera

make sure that these scripts are executable by running

chmod a+x ./install_droneengage.sh
chmod a+x ./install_droneengage_camera.sh

now execute scripts

./install_droneengage.sh
./install_droneengage_camera.sh

after they finish you will a folder called drone_engage

/home/pi/drone_engage/de_comm Communicator Module.
/home/pi/drone_engage/de_mavlink Mavlink Module that communicates with FCB.
/home/pi/drone_engage/de_camera Camera Module that streams video and records video and images.

each folder contains config.module.json that you need to edit.

DE_COMM Configuration File

de_comm config.module.json Configuration File

You mainly need to enter two fields:

“userName” :”team@ardupilot.org”, “accessCode” :”1234”,

use your own account and access code from registration.

DE_MAVLINK Configuration File

de_mavlink Configuration File

you can enable wifi connection or serial connection form the settings:

"fcb_connection_uri":
{
    "type": "udp",
    "ip": "0.0.0.0",
    "port":14445
},
// Using serial interface
//"fcb_connection_uri":
// {
//   "type": "serial",
//   "port": "/home/mhefny/ttyUSB23",
//   "baudrate": 115200
// },

The wifi can be used also to connect to SITL on your laptop by running that sends UDP to 14445 on your RaspberryPI IP.

$ python3 ardupilot/Tools/autotest/sim_vehicle.py -j4 -v ArduCopter    -M --map --console --instance 50   --out=udpout:RPI-IP:14445

or

//"fcb_connection_uri":
//{  "type": "udp",
//   "ip": "0.0.0.0",
//   "port":14445
//},
// Using serial interface
"fcb_connection_uri":
{
    "type": "serial",
    "port": "/home/mhefny/ttyAMA0",
    "baudrate": 115200
},

Important

Only one connection should be active and the other should be commented by “//” or remove it form the file.

DE_CAMERA Configuration File

you mainly need to define cameras. bedefault there is a camera defined on /dev/video0 and given name “AI1”

"one_session_per_camera"    : true,
"camera_list": [
{
  "name": "AI1", "device_num": 0
  "name": "AnotherCAM", "device_num": 1 // you can add additional cameras
} // name should be unique across all cameras.
],

you can also choose to enumerate on video devices that exists in a given range. for example list all video devices from /dev/video0 to /dev/video10 :

"one_session_per_camera"    : true,
"camera_start_index"        :0,
"camera_end_index"          :10,

You can comment the unwanted option by adding // at the beginning if its line.

Other parameters exists but they are not mandatory to change and you can just leave them as a start.

Important

you need to enable legacy camera suppot on camera devices that you are using, and remember to reboot. sudo raspi-config nonint do_legacy 0