# How to get Gimbal angle and Camera target coordinates

**URL:** <https://discuss.cubepilot.org/t/how-to-get-gimbal-angle-and-camera-target-coordinates/6160>\
**Category:** Mission Planner\
**Created:** [20 April 2021 22:24 UTC](https://discuss.cubepilot.org/t/how-to-get-gimbal-angle-and-camera-target-coordinates/6160 "2021-04-20T22:24:57Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 1\
**Showing post:** 5

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**Author:** ![Harkhka](https://discuss.cubepilot.org/user_avatar/discuss.cubepilot.org/harkhka/32/3672_2.png) [@Harkhka](https://discuss.cubepilot.org/u/Harkhka)\
**Post date:** [22 April 2021 17:36 UTC](https://discuss.cubepilot.org/t/how-to-get-gimbal-angle-and-camera-target-coordinates/6160/5 "2021-04-22T17:36:12Z")

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Hi @Alvin,  
Firstly, thank you soo much for taking your time to reply. Really appreciate it.

> [@Alvin](#):
>
> how did the camera spot the person in the first place?

The drone operator moves the camera using the wheel on the herelink or a knob on a transmitter until he spots someone.

> [@Alvin](#):
>
> My thought is that if you had previously commanded the gimbal to a specific location, you should have known where it is pointing at

Yes, I understand this solution, but there’s a problem with this:

It is not confirmed that the gimbal has attained that angle accurately or not right? It could be easily off by some degrees or so since the angle can get affected by the wind, drone speed, etc. Without the feedback system, it’s like just assuming that the gimbal reached that angle, right?

Due to this error in angle, the ROI coordinates can never be accurate. ☹

I am now convinced that using PWM would never let me accurately achieve what I want to, because of the lack of feedback.

**So this is what I am thinking now:**

I have an AlexMos gimbal which could also be controlled in a better way via “AlexMos Serial” instead of PWM. (like shown here: [SimpleBGC Gimbal (aka AlexMos gimbal) — Copter documentation](https://ardupilot.org/copter/docs/common-simplebgc-gimbal.html))  
My Gimbal is an old version one, so can’t use MAVLINK, but can use AlexMos-Serial technique.

The gimbal’s GUI can read and display the gimbal angle using this serial only, which means that the gimbal has the ability for sending angles.

Can the Arducopter just simply read this angle, and send it over to the ground station just like it sends other parameters?

Eagerly waiting for your reply.

Thanks,  
Divyanshu

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