How to connect Multiple Vehicles in Mission Planner?

If you’re planning to perform swarm operations with multiple drones, then it’s necessary to connect multiple drones on the Ground Control Station (GCS). In that case, I mostly prefer Mission Planner for connecting multiple vehicles because of its modest interface.

Multiple Vehicles Connected to Mission Planner

You can able to connect n number of devices to Mission Planner, but that n is purely based on your computer’s configuration.

Connecting a Vehicle in Mission Planner

For connecting a vehicle to Mission Planner, click on the CONNECT button present on the top right corner of the window. Before clicking the CONNECT button, don’t forget to select the telemetry connection type (i.e., TCP, UDP, Serial) from the connection drop-down box.

Connect Button - Mission Planner

A dialog box will open once after clicking on the CONNECT button, where you can enter the port number for establishing the mavlink connection between the vehicle and the system.

Listern Port (Dialog Box) - Mission Planner

After clicking the OK button on the dialog box, the intended vehicle will be connected to the Mission Planner.

A Vehicle connected to Mission Planner

Connecting Multiple Vehicles in Mission Planner

Using the above method, you can connect a single vehicle with ease. But, for connecting multiple drones, right-click on the top bar of Mission Planner and select the Connection Options.

Connection Options - Mission Planner

The above action will lead to the opening of the Connection Options dialog box. In that dialog, select the necessary telemetry connection type and click on Connect button.

Connection Options (Dialog Box) - Mission Planner

A dialog box will open once after clicking on the CONNECT button, where you can enter the port number for establishing the mavlink connection between the vehicle and the system.

Listern Port (Dialog Box) - Mission Planner

After clicking the OK button on the dialog box, the second vehicle will be connected to the Mission Planner.

Two Vehicles connected to Mission Planner

Voila, you’ve successfully connected two vehicles in the Mission Planner. Also, you can follow these same steps to connect multiple devices in the Mission Planner without a mess.

Four Vehicles connected to Mission Planner

Basic Swarming using Mission Planner

The reason for connecting multiple vehicles to a Ground Control Station is mainly for performing swarm operations. The Mission Planner has native support for performing swarm operations but, it’ll be present in Advanced Options.

The reason for connecting multiple vehicles to a Ground Control Station is mainly for performing swarm operations. The Mission Planner has native support for performing swarm operations but, it’ll be present in Advanced Options. You can open the Advanced Options window by using the keyboard shortcut Ctrl + F.

Advanced Options - Mission Planner

In the temp window, there’ll be a list of buttons, in which click on the Swarm button to perform the swarm operations, which lead to the opening of the Control window.

Swarm Control - Mission Planner

In the Control window, you can perform some of the following swarm operations with multiple vehicles:

• Arming and Disarming Motors
• Changing the mode of all the Vehicles to Guided
• Take-off and Landing Operations
• Setting the Leader Vehicle (Leader-Follower Swarm Architecture), etc

Controlling Four Vehicles - Mission Planner

You can also control the required vehicle individually by selecting the connection to the vehicle from the connection list drop-down present in the top right side corner of the Mission Planner main window.

Conclusion

In this article, I’ve tried to explain how to connect multiple vehicles in Mission Planner. I’m expectantly waiting for your valuable feedback and suggestions regarding this topic.

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