Understanding Flight Modes and Mission Planning

Previously in this book, we explored various Ground Control Station (GCS) operations and functions, as well as how they help to command and control a drone in real time. We also saw how a GCS is used to configure a drone and its various peripheral devices through its numerous interfaces. In previous chapters, we learned how to configure a drone so that it can use different flight modes that have already been configured by the respective developers from ArduPilot and PX4. In this chapter, we will see what those flight modes are, how they help a pilot fly the drone, and what sensors they use. This chapter will help you to understand the different kinds of flight modes under which a drone flies and how these flight modes are activated using a remote control or GCS. This will, in turn, help you understand more about flying a drone using a remote control or GCS.

In this chapter, we are going to cover the following topics as they will help...