Sphero Plus AR.Drone Camera Conflict

Yes - the behavior you’re seeing is expected in ARC:

• Movement commands always route to the single active Movement Panel
• The AR Parrot Drone Movement skill is what’s providing the drone camera feed in this case
• Since ARC supports only one Movement Panel per project, adding the drone Movement Panel makes it the active movement target, which is why Movement.Forward() starts targeting the drone instead of Sphero

What to do instead

Option 1: Use the drone only as a camera source, but don’t rely on the drone Movement Panel for your robot movement

If your goal is:

• Sphero = movement
• AR.Drone = camera only

then the cleanest solution is to use a camera source that does not require the drone movement panel.

In ARC, the Camera Device skill can accept:

• USB cameras
• EZB camera sources
• JPEG snapshot HTTP URLs
• other supported camera devices

See the Camera Device manual here:

• Camera Device robot skill

Why the drone feed appears only after adding the AR Parrot Drone movement panel

The AR.Drone video feed is being exposed through that Movement Panel skill. So without it, ARC has no direct access to the drone’s video stream.

That means:

• If you want the built-in drone video pipeline, yes, the AR Parrot Drone Movement skill is required
• If you want Sphero to stay the active Movement Panel, then the drone video must be consumed another way

Supported workaround idea

If the AR.Drone can expose a direct MJPEG/JPEG snapshot URL, you could potentially use:

• Camera Device JPEG Snapshot HTTP Video Device

This is the right path if the drone publishes a direct image URL.

In the Camera Device settings:

1. Add Camera Device
2. Open the kebab menu on the skill
3. Set the Video Device to a JPEG Snapshot HTTP Video Device
4. Enter the direct snapshot URL

More on camera setup:

• Vision Type setup

About programmatically swapping movement panels

ARC does not support multiple active movement panels at once, and there isn’t a supported way to make Movement.* dynamically switch between them at runtime the way you’re hoping.

So if the AR.Drone Movement Panel is in the project, Movement.* will generally target that active movement panel.

Best practical path

For your use case, I’d recommend one of these:

A. Best overall

Use a separate camera source for vision and keep:

• Sphero Movement Panel active for movement
• Camera Device connected to a camera source that does not need the drone movement skill

B. If you must use the drone camera

Use the AR.Drone feed only if you can connect Camera Device directly to a valid stream URL, so the AR.Drone Movement Panel is not needed.

A couple of questions so I can point you to the right setup

1. Are you trying to use the AR.Drone 2.0’s live camera specifically, or would any camera work for vision?
2. When you tried URLs, what exact URL formats did you test?
3. In ARC, are you using the Sphero Movement Panel as the only Movement Panel right now, or do you still have the drone panel in the project?

If you want, I can help you figure out the correct AR.Drone video URL to try with Camera Device, or help you structure the project so Sphero remains the movement robot while another camera feeds vision.