Pypilot integration with Orca Core

[Cmanson]

Hi, I’m looking for help on being able to control Pypilot from the Orca Core app but so far I’ve not got the app to detect it (see screenshot attached Of Orca sensor logs). 

My setup is Orca core and sensors are on NMEA2000 which connect to Pi 5/MacArthur Hat. My Pypilot is able to see my sensor data from the NMEA2000 network and is fully functioning. I have the Signal K to NMEA2000 plugin enabled with all PGNs selected (see screenshots) although I’m not sure if the autopilot PGNs are being translated for Orca to detect? Any suggestions on how I can check this?

All suggestions welcome!

[johnch]

I don’t know if you’ll be able to control it from orca. Orca is looking for an N2K pilot, and pypilot is connected to SignalK not to N2K.

You would need SK to emulate an AP, then translate to pypilot - as far as I know nobody has done that.

Unfortunately the N2K standard has poor autopilot support, so there isn’t a set of standard PGNs to implement to make this work. Every AP manufacturer has their own proprietary PGNs, a lot of which have not been fully reverse engineered so having pypilot pretend to be one of those is tricky!

I am working on N2K support for pypilot, but currently for data transfer only not AP control due to the above problem. Once that is done I will try out emulating other manufacturers APs, but I don’t have an orca so won’t be able to test that unfortunately I doubt I will put a lot of time into that side of it as it seems like a rabbit hole with relatively little to gain unfortunately

[Cmanson]

Thanks for the helpful response. Because Orca’s documentation indicates Autopilots that support the standard NMEA Navigation and Cross Track PGNs work with Orca I was hoping the bridging between N0183 and N2K via Signal k would be sufficient. Based on your explanation this may not be enough. I am following your other post thread so interested to hear you get on.

[johnch]

Thanks for the helpful response. Because Orca’s documentation indicates Autopilots that support the standard NMEA Navigation and Cross Track PGNs work with Orca I was hoping the bridging between N0183 and N2K via Signal k would be sufficient. Based on your explanation this may not be enough. I am following your other post thread so interested to hear you get on.

It’s possible that it could work with my N2K changes in that case to a certain extent, as they will at least allow orca to see that there is an AP device on the network - you may be able to have the AP follow a course. But you won’t get full control, the ability to set mode, engage/disengage etc from the Orca interface, because those things require proprietary PGNs.