Working on new Mac OS free flight pro replacement - Currently working - expansion of my power mod work for the bb2/sc2

[Giannis K]

I’ve been working on a new macOS replacement for FreeFlight Pro for the Bebop 2 / SkyController 2, expanding on the RF/power-mod work I’ve been doing recently.

It is already working well enough for live testing: the SkyController 2 connects directly to the Mac over USB, a custom macOS driver creates the network link, and the app receives and decodes the Bebop 2 live video stream while also displaying flight telemetry, RSSI per RF chain, SNR, link quality, battery status, packet loss/jitter and other diagnostics.

The goal is to have a completely free and open-source modern replacement for the old FreeFlight setup, without needing an old iPhone or unsupported mobile app.

I should have the current version pushed to GitHub tomorrow after I finish cleaning up a few bugs from the first flight test. It is built natively for Apple Silicon and should work across all M-series Macs.

I’ll post the repository and setup instructions here once it is up.
Here are some screenshots! You are also able to see how well the RF power mod works I discussed on my other post, at 625M away the link reads 100% with 26db of margin!

 

[Giannis K]

And if I did not make it clear already, it will be free, open source and should end up supporting the bebop 1, bebop 2 and disco when used with the SC2!

 

[Giannis K]

The Parrot lab application is now available on my GitHub forr apple silicon devices! It is currently in development but even this version works as a basic free flight pro replacement with basic functionality! GitHub - GiannisTDM/parrot-lab: Beta macOS ground station and diagnostics suite for Parrot Bebop 2 and SkyController 2

 

[Giannis K]

Working 1080p stream playback from the bebop 2 anyone?

 

[Giannis K]

I welcome you to the first proper beta 1.0 release of the Parrot lab software!
The highlights include:
Live Bebop 2 video, flight telemetry, RF diagnostics and HUD
Lossless H.264 recording and PNG/JPEG photo capture
480p, 720p and experimental 1080p drone streaming profiles
Adjustable adaptive or locked stream bitrate
Integrated Dragon Lab, RF/MOD Suite and SC2 Apple-NCM installers
Major decoded-frame memory-growth and Bebop battery-refresh fixes

Releases · GiannisTDM/parrot-lab

Beta macOS ground station and diagnostics suite for Parrot Bebop 2 and SkyController 2 - GiannisTDM/parrot-lab

github.com

Be sure to also read the new readme at:

GitHub - GiannisTDM/parrot-lab: Beta macOS ground station and diagnostics suite for Parrot Bebop 2 and SkyController 2

Beta macOS ground station and diagnostics suite for Parrot Bebop 2 and SkyController 2 - GiannisTDM/parrot-lab

github.com

 

[Giannis K]

Update v1.2 has come out!

• persistent ARSDK telemetry for batteries, flight state, attitude, GPS fix, satellite count, speed and last-known coordinates
• original full-sensor 4K fisheye capture and FTP retrieval
• denoise, clarity, low-light cleanup and high-quality 2x image enhancement modes
• guided SC2 bridge and USB address discovery
• guarded two-device RF profile apply/restore workflow
• expanded encoded, decoded, display and duplicate-RTP diagnostics

• BusyBox compatibility, PATH, permission and root mount-state issues in device installers
• SC2 discovery fallback and verified installer completion handling
• FFmpeg pipe shutdown and macOS recovery-decoder stability
• duplicate RTP picture delivery and diagnostic SPS/PPS capture
• RF Lab non-interactive profile application and stock baseline recovery

 

[Giannis K]

Sneak peak for version 1.3, the bebop hardware could not support 1080p streaming, as you know ffp only gave us 720p streaming as the best option, after disassembling and remaking a custom dragon prog for the drone I bring you, 900p 30fps with no latency only on parrot lab with 2x metal FX upscaling and denoising, you do not need me to tell you which is stock and which is the 900p+upscaling profile . This is what parrot engineers would have wanted (picture is a zoomed in crop on an artificial plant). This is only preliminary as well and will get better as I tune the config! I imagine you are already stoked!

 

[dla8175]

Great work! I can’t give it a try unfortunately, I don’t have a macOS device…also I guess it does’t work for the bebop 1 if you used a fw version later than 4.0.6, does it?
Do you mind sharing some info on you reverse engineering process? It would be very interesting…

 

[Giannis K]

Great work! I can’t give it a try unfortunately, I don’t have a macOS device…also I guess it does’t work for the bebop 1 if you used a fw version later than 4.0.6, does it?
Do you mind sharing some info on you reverse engineering process? It would be very interesting…

Everything is on my GitHub! it should work on bb1 as well, dragon prog is exactly the same as far as I am aware and there were not any major hardware differences between bb1 and bb2 besides BLDC drive and battery management, the way they stabilise, capture and transmit is the same, bb1 just may need a touch of debugging and that will be that to add support for it. Still you should 100% be able to use my tools to enable the same features on the bb1, the rf lab executable should natively work on that as well for the range improvement and you should be able to use the 4.4.2 version dragon to make it transmit 900p30 back to ffp. My repo should be of good use to you as well and I do plan for a windows fork in the future!

 

[dla8175]

Do you think it could work with the skycontroller 1 as well?

 

[Giannis K]

Do you think it could work with the skycontroller 1 as well?

Oh absolutely! I am sure it also runs busybox and has the same rf front end! go ahead and try it out, the rf lab program doesn't have a platform limit applied, you can find it in my rf lab repo and see if the power mods give you the same benefit as on the sc2!