Dual Drone Telemetry

Multi-source drone telemetry simulator demonstrating Serial Studio's ability to receive and visualize data from two independent devices simultaneously, each with its own camera feed, GPS coordinates, flight dynamics, and battery monitoring.

Overview

Two simulated drones fly completely different flight profiles over the Nevada desert, each transmitting telemetry and synthetic camera imagery on separate UDP ports:

Drone	Port	Flight Pattern	Altitude	Camera Style
Alpha	9001	Circular patrol (~330 m radius)	120 m	Top-down terrain (green/brown palette)
Bravo	9002	Figure-8 survey (~550 m radius)	200 m	Thermal/IR (iron-bow palette)

Camera Feeds

Alpha Terrain — top-down patrol camera view:

Procedural green/brown terrain with position-based parallax
Roads rendered as grid lines based on GPS position
Targeting reticle circle with crosshair lines and heading arrow
Green HUD overlay with altitude, heading, and GPS coordinates

Bravo Thermal — synthetic thermal/infrared view:

Iron-bow color palette (black → purple → orange → yellow)
Moving thermal hot spots simulating heat signatures
Scanning line and grid overlay
Amber HUD overlay with FLIR label, altitude, and GPS coordinates
Simple crosshair at center

Telemetry per drone (11 fields)

Field	Units	Description
Latitude	deg	GPS latitude
Longitude	deg	GPS longitude
Heading	deg	Compass heading (0-360)
Altitude	m	Altitude above ground
Airspeed	m/s	Forward speed
Vertical Speed	m/s	Climb/descent rate
Roll	deg	Bank angle
Pitch	deg	Nose up/down angle
Battery Voltage	V	6S LiPo (18-25.2 V)
Current Draw	A	Motor + avionics current
Battery %	%	Remaining charge (drains over time)

Quick Start

Open Dual Drone Telemetry.ssproj in Serial Studio
Connect both UDP sources (ports 9001 and 9002)
Run the simulator:

bash

pip install opencv-python numpy   # for camera imagery
python3 dual_drone_telemetry.py

The simulator works without opencv -- you just won't get camera images.

Command-Line Options

Flag	Default	Description
`--fps`	10	Update rate in Hz (telemetry + camera)
`--host`	127.0.0.1	UDP destination host

Protocol Details

Both drones use hexadecimal frame delimiters with JPEG images interleaved in the same byte stream:

Alpha: AB CD EF (start) / FE ED (end)
Bravo: DE AD (start) / FE ED (end)

Each cycle sends a raw JPEG frame first, then a delimited CSV telemetry frame. The Image View widget auto-detects JPEG frames by scanning for FF D8 FF magic bytes, independent of the CSV telemetry path.

Dashboard Widgets

Each drone has six widget groups on the dashboard:

Widget	Type	Description
Camera	Image View	Live terrain (Alpha) or thermal/IR (Bravo) camera feed
Position	Map	GPS track on interactive map
Heading	Compass	Compass heading indicator
Attitude	Gyroscope	Roll, pitch, and yaw (heading) visualization
Flight	Gauges + Bars	Airspeed, altitude, and vertical speed
Power	Gauges + Bars	Battery voltage, current draw, and charge level

Flight Models

Drone Alpha flies a steady circular patrol:

Constant mild bank angle (~12 deg)
Slow altitude oscillation (+/- 8 m)
Battery drain: ~0.15%/sec

Drone Bravo flies an aggressive figure-8 survey:

Dynamic banking (up to +/- 40 deg)
Higher altitude variation (+/- 15 m)
Faster speed, higher current draw
Battery drain: ~0.18%/sec

Both drones have low-battery alarms configured at 20% charge and 21V.

Requirements

Python 3.6+
opencv-python and numpy (optional, for camera imagery)
Serial Studio Pro (multi-source + Image View features)