@Ender said in General inquiries about Starling 2 Max Outdoor GPS-denied Development Drone: @Ender please fine responses below: What are the specifications of the different cameras available? Thermal or RGB? Especially the tracking one. You can find all specifications on the cameras in our documentation here: https://docs.modalai.com/image-sensors/ We have seen that the drone comes with an PX4 integrated flight controller. We would prefer working with Ardupilot. Is it possible to use an external flight controller? Or use your flight controller with Ardupilot? Mainline ardupilot on the PCB is still in progress - unsure if it is mainlined yet but I believe this is still in development - as for using a external flight controller that can absolutely be done and then you can leverage the voxl2 for onboard compute capabilities - however you would be in charge of figuring out how to MOUNT it to the starling 2 max. Documentation on how one can leverage an external FCU can be found here: https://docs.modalai.com/voxl2-external-flight-controller/ If yes to the response above, could you provide indications on how to do so? What would be required (changing some parameters or something similar?) You can follow the documentation here: https://docs.modalai.com/voxl2-external-flight-controller/ - NOTE: the documentation reflects usage of PX4, however you can use ardupilot as well with the same hardware and software setup as they both leverage mavlink. Our environment is very bright and therefore challenging regarding camera exposure. We are thinking of using some extra cameras compared to your initial setup. How complicate would it be to add extra cameras? The starling 2 max has the option of 3 tracking cameras - I am a bit unsure why you would need to add more into the mix in order to capture the exposure in the environment. I would not recommend adding more cameras in this ecosystem as three should be plenty. Zach

@Moderator any advice?

@hockey_fan No problem, I'll update the docs page with this info, thank you for pointing this out

@Shivam-Sehgal No, there is no Starling model in Gazebo.

@tom Thank you! This solution worked. I changed this value and reboot the drone and it now connects and fly well with the RC controller.

@aryan-yadav If you had purchased a drone with the M0173 it would've already had the correct kernel flashed but we ship bare boards with the default kernel

@Stefan-Amundarain , Quick tip: if you use --id 2 during the calibration, the total current will be reported because the ESC ID2 senses the total board current. Note that if you have other load connected to the ESC, like VOXL2, that current will also be included, but it's better than nothing. Generally VOXL2 will consume little power compared to a motor spining a 5-inch propeller at high speed. The current measurement is not used for anything in the calibration, but it is a good sanity check to make sure things are behaving properly. The first plot (commanded motor voltage vs rpm is close to linear, which is a good result). Do not try to "blindly" change the a0, a1, and a2 parameters, as they are the coefficients of a quadratic curve used for feed-forward component of the RPM controller. It is not possible to just guess it. Also another tip, if you are running this calibration VOXL2 (as opposed to a PC), if you enable the cpu performance mode (voxl-set-cpu-mode perf), it should reduce some delays in running the calibration script and the data should look a bit cleaner (although i don't think it is an issue here). After performing the calibration and updating the calibration esc params file, make sure you are actually uploading that to the ESC using voxl-esc-upload-params.py script. Finally, after updating the params, what command are you using to test the ESC? You can gently test the RPM response using a ramp test, similar to what is described here: https://gitlab.com/voxl-public/voxl-sdk/utilities/voxl-esc/-/blob/master/voxl-esc-tools/doc/low_kv_motor_tuning.md?ref_type=heads#power-ramp-test , but instead of power ramp, you can do an rpm ramp: ./voxl-esc-spin.py --id 2 --rpm 12000 --ramp-time 3.0 --timeout 3.5 --enable-plot 1 --cmd-rate 250 I would be curious to see the plot of that test. You can vary the rpm target in the test (make it higher) as you become more comfortable with the performance. The closest param file to what you are testing is probably this one : https://gitlab.com/voxl-public/voxl-sdk/utilities/voxl-esc/-/blob/master/voxl-esc-params/FPV_RevB/m0138_xing2_1855_5x4x3.xml?ref_type=heads using Xing2 2207 1855kv with 5.1x4.1x3 tri-blade propeller, but this tuning is for 6S battery -- do not use this param file directly because the a0, a1, a2 params will be wrong (because you are using 4S) Please double check your results and if it is still not working, i can test your calibration file on my setup with the xing2 motor with a 4S battery. Alex

Hello @zauberflote1! Thanks for sharing. Made any progress on this package?

@Zachary-Lowell-0 Flight tests resulted in the failure of VOA operations. I set CP_GUIDE_ANG to 30 degrees. Unfortunately, after takeoff, the drone behaved as if it was locked and allowed to move only one way with a lot of resistance. I tried changing the parameters randomly but nothing worked. Could you please share your set of parameters?

@skl1g14 Thank you for sharing the urdf files! The link you shared however goes to a 404 page. Can you share another location for the given files? Thanks again in advance!

@tom Thank you.

@soraminds 1. Yes if you have a static IP set up with your cellular provider or you you use a VPN service such as tailscale to get the ground station and sentinel on the same network. Yes

@Eric-Katzfey I got it, thank you so much.

@Zachary-Lowell-0 Thank you for letting me know. this is my first time working with a multi-cell battery and a smart charger. I will be careful not to connect multiple batteries at the same time.

@tom P.S. I am currently working with the Drone Sentinel VOXL 2 and the drone is connected via LTE but without Wi-Fi, because there is no wifi dongle.

@jonathankampia got it. Thank you so much.

Hi @swickliff If this is still troubling you, are you willing to do an RMA so we can inspect and make sure things are solidly setup again for you? You can get started by reaching out here: rma@modalai.com