tello Go Package

This tello package provides an unofficial, easy-to-use, standalone API for the Ryze Tello® drone.

Disclaimer

Tello is a registered trademark of Ryze Tech. The author of this package is in no way affiliated with Ryze, DJI, or Intel.

The package has been developed by gathering together information from a variety of sources on the Internet (especially https://tellopilots.com) and by examining data packets sent to/from the Tello. The package will probably be extended as more knowledge of the drone's protocol is obtained.

Use this package at your own risk. The author(s) is/are in no way responsible for any damage caused either to or by the drone when using this software.

Features

The following features have been implemented...

• Stick-based flight control, ie. for joystick, game-, or flight-controller
• Drone built-in flight commands, eg. Takeoff(), PalmLand()
• Macro-level flight control, eg. Forward(), Up()
• Autopilot flight control, eg. AutoFlyToHeight(), AutoFlyToXY()
• Video stream support
• Enriched flight-data (some log data is added)
• Picture taking/saving support
• Multiple drone support - Untested

See ImplementationChart.md for full details of what functions are currently implemented.

Documentation should be available locally via godoc, or via godoc.org.

An example application using this package is available at telloterm.

Here is an example of just about the simplest use of the package...

package main
import (
  "log"
  "time"
  "github.com/SMerrony/tello"
)

func main() {
  	drone := new(tello.Tello)
  err := drone.ControlConnectDefault()
  if err != nil {
    log.Fatalf("%v", err) 
  }

  drone.TakeOff()
  time.Sleep(10 * time.Second)
  drone.Land()
  drone.ControlDisconnect()
}

Concepts

Connection Types

The drone provides two types of connection: a 'control' connection which handles all commands to and from the drone including flight, status and (still) pictures, and a 'video' connection which provides an H.264 video stream from the forward-facing camera.

You must establish a control connection to use the drone, but the video connection is optional and cannot be started unless a control connection is running.

Funcs vs. Channels

Certain functionality is made available in two forms: single-shot function calls and streaming (channel) data flows. Eg. GetFlightData() vs. StreamFlightData(), and UpdateSticks() vs. StartStickListener().

Use whichever paradigm you prefer, but be aware that the channel-based calls should return immediately (the channels are buffered) whereas the function-based options could conceivably cause your application to pause very briefly if the Tello is very busy; in practice, the author has not found this to be an issue.