Complex fence support issues (affecting Copter and Rover)

[rmackay9]

This is a list of known issues with the MP's support of Complex Fence support that was introduced with ArduPilot Copter/Rover 4.0. This issue was prompted by at least one user running into troubles with the feature here on discuss.

1. "There was an unexpected error" message when attempting to upload a polygon fence. This was a very simple fence as shown below:

2. buttons and messages do not differentiate between missions and fence points:

   • "Read WPs" should be renamed to be more generic or should change to "Read Points" (or something similar) when "FENCE" drop-down at top is selected
   • "This will clear your existing planned mission, Continue?" should be "This will clear your existing fences, Continue?"

3. We should remove the two step-process involving the polygon drawing tool menu on the top left. The current process is:

   • select Fence from the drop-down on the right
   • click on the polygon icon on the top left, select draw a polygon
   • draw a polygon on the map
   • click on the polygon icon (again), select "fence inclusion" or "fence exclusion"

   Instead the user should just select "fence inclusion" or "fence exclusion" right at the beginning instead of first having to select "draw polygon". Also the little polygon icon should go green when the user is entering a polygon and if they click it again it should probably have the option to abandon the fence they're drawing. An alternative method more consistent with the way that waypoints are added would be to use the equivalent of the "Add Below" button. Either have four buttons for "Add Polygon Stay-in", "Add polygon stay-out", "add circle stay-in", "add circle stay-out" (or whatever names you want) that then trigger slightly different drawing methods.

4. "There was an unexpected error" when writing a blank list of fence "commands". If the user wants to clear all the fences, they would intuitively clear the list and press write (just like they do for WP). this does clear the list of fences but also produces this error.

Fixed issues:

• [x] button below slider looks like a Japanese yen sign and it's help text is "Add a line to the grid bellow" which is incorrect (also "below" is spelled with a single "l").
• [x] no way to upload circular fences

[meee1]

I believe this is resolved now as well

[rmackay9]

Issues uploading fences to Copter-4.0 came up today in the support forums here: https://discuss.ardupilot.org/t/impossible-to-upload-the-new-geofence-in-copter-4-0-1-in-holybro-pixhawk-4/51589

[rmackay9]

@meee1,

I retested this today and it's definitely gotten better thanks.

I immediately bumped into the first reported problem, ("There was an unexpected error") because I did not realise what I needed to put into the "Points" fields for a polygon fence. I guess the user has to type in the number of points in the polygon that they are currently adding. So for example if I had an 8 point polygon, I'd first click on all the points and then type "8" into all the Points fields. It's kind of OK for users who are used to spreadsheets, for regular people I fear it's a bit uintuitive and they will end up fiddling around with the "Points" columns. I'm also wonder what the polygon drawer is for now..

[Kwapin]

Has Anybody resolved the issue number 1? I have the same error and cannot upload fences to Ardurover 4.0 over SiK radio.

[rmackay9]

@Kwapin, I think issue 1 is resolved now. We've got a wiki page here which tries to describe it: https://ardupilot.org/copter/docs/common-polygon_fence.html.

I think that MP's interface is a little difficult to understand still but this is the process:

• Go to the Pl;an screen
• Select Fence from the top right corner of the map
• Select the polygon icon on the far left side of the screen
• Draw a polygon on the map by clicking
• Select the polygon icon again on the far left side of the screen and select Fence Inclusion or Fence Exclusion

Hope that helps

[meee1]

@Kwapin make sure you enable mavlink2

[Kwapin]

@Kwapin make sure you enable mavlink2

That was it, thanks @meee1 seems like enabling mavlink2 solved the issue, @rmackay9 Thanks for help, that is all clear. Seems it would be good idea to add to wiki information that this bug comes from wrong mavlink setting.

[rmackay9]

@Kwapin,

Ah, right. I actually didn't realise this was a requirement. Issue here for the wiki and I think we will default the protocol to Mavlink2 for ArduPilot-4.1 (Copter, Plane, Rover, etc)

[Hwurzburg]

When do you need Mav2? fence upload/download only? Plane geofences (they use a different method, I think)? need some specifics if we are going to add to the wiki

[rmackay9]

@Hwurzburg, I'm not sure but I suspect that to upload or download complex fences (polygon or circle) it requires MAVLink2 to be enabled.