Node Status Drawer

The Status Window can be accessed by single-clicking on the tab indicated by three horizontal lines . This is a menu that gives a quick overview of the status of the aircraft and the ground station. Below is an example of the menu with the icons. It is broken up into the aircraft information (bottom pane) and the SwiftStation information (top pane).

Tip

The status window can be interacted with in three ways:

  1. Pressing the Engine Status icon toggles whether the engine is enabled

  2. Pressing anywhere else on the aircraft box will open the Control Window

  3. Long Pressing on the ground station or aircraft box will center the map on that object and continue to track it.

Signal Strength

The signal strength icon on both the aircraft and SwiftStation panes indicates the strength of the wirless signal. The aircraft pane specifically shows the signal strength from the SwiftStation to the aircraft for the 900MHz link while the indicator in the SwiftStation pane shows the strength of the WiFi signal between the tablet and the SwiftStation.

Battery Charge

The battery charge icon displays the the charge state of the battery, as well as the battery percentage remaining. The icon on the aircraft pane displays the charge of the primary battery on the aircraft while the icon on the SwiftStation pane is for the internal battery of the ground station.

GPS Signal Quality

The satellite icon used to indicate GPS quality will change depending on the number of satellite signals obtained. The icon will be one of three colors to indicate GPS signal quality including:

  • Green: Indicates the GPS is functioning and has a good signal.
  • Yellow: Indicates a degraded GPS that still has a position lock.
  • Red: Indicates a lost GPS.

Motor/Engine Status

This is the engine icon. Yellow indicates that the engine is disabled (useful in pre and post flight) while green indicates that the engine is enabled. Single-clicking on this icon can toggle whether the engine is enabled or disabled. The engine is automatically disabled on bootup until the user gets through the preflight checklist and then automatically disabled again on landing.

Aircraft Status

The aircraft status icon is grey when the aircraft is in an automatic flight mode and blue when it is in manual control. It will also flash red when there is an error happening.

Time on Battery

This indicates the flight time since bootup of the aircraft. The format is HH:MM.

Ground Station Distance and Aircraft AGL

This is the straight-line ground distance between the SwiftStation and the aircraft, as well as the aircraft's height above ground level at that moment. This can be helpful for monitoring the range of the aircraft.

Airspeed and Altitude Information

This set of information displays the airspeed and altitude performance comprise of:

  • The measured airspeed of the aircraft (white).
  • The desired commanded airspeed (blue).
  • The measured altitude of the aircraft.
  • The commanded altitude.
  • The status arrow for altitude state:
    • Altitude Hold
    • Climb
    • Descent