HawkRX Low Cost/Open Source MultiRX System

Starting in late 2019 I began drumming up the idea for an FPV ground station that did not require complex planning for best signal quality in large tracks.

I found that some of the most enjoyable Whoop racing takes place in interesting venues. Examples of places this system is designed for: large foot venues with multiple rooms, venues with rough RF environments and compact but long venues where a ground station has to sacrifice quality for ease of use.

The HawkRX takes normal diversity and splits it into two separate ground stations. This allows one RX to be in the main race area and another to be in a room that has issues with signal reaching pilots. This allows more distance between pilots and race area. When one RXs signal get weak the other on the complete opposite side of the room will take over control.

This system was built using 1 pair of ESP32 microcontrollers per 2 channels. Communication for channel changing and RSSI values is sent over a 2.4GHz wireless mesh to prevent 5.8GHz interference. The video signal needs to have no latency so it is carried by a CAT5e/CAT6 cable between RXs. This allows zero added latency and zero video processing.

The system is in a testing phase before being released to the public. As of 2020 the project is on a hold until after the COVID-19 pandemic so it can be tested in real world environments.