ModalAI Forum

Eric Katzfey

My only guess at this point is that it may be timing related. I would try each step, wait a long time, then try the next step. Maybe something is taking too long and the system is not yet ready for the next step. But that's just a guess.

Eric Katzfey

I'll probably have to recreate this and then debug it. I won't be able to do that until I get back from travel the week after next. Here's something from Codex that you could try:

  With Mission Planner closed, add this to its config.xml:

  <UseMavFtpParams>False</UseMavFtpParams>

  Then restart Mission Planner and repeat the exact sequence. This forces the legacy MAVLink parameter protocol instead of the packed MAVFTP download.

  Interpretation:

  - Failure disappears: strongly implicates MAVFTP burst traffic and the QURT/SLPI backpressure path.
  - Failure remains: investigate the broader reconnect/SLPI lifecycle rather than MAVFTP specifically.
  - QGroundControl works consistently: also supports the Mission Planner MAVFTP-trigger theory, though it would not prove MP is defective.

Alex Kushleyev

@jbiscan21 , can you also share the esc params that you uploaded to the ESC after ESC calibration ? I am assuming you went through this procedure : https://gitlab.com/voxl-public/voxl-sdk/utilities/voxl-esc/-/blob/master/voxl-esc-tools/calibration.md

From the log I see that all 4 motors spun up but the rpm is capped at about 2200 rpm, which may mean you ESC tuning params are incorrect.

Also note that after arming, your drone immediately commands about 10000 rpm, which is not great, because that would be a sudden jump.. you may want to check your flight mode to avoid this.

Eric Katzfey

Also, there are many good simulators out there.

Jetson Nano

@Eric-Katzfey Thank you for reverting back, I will use j18 or 19 for the flight controller connection.
So I am assuming the UART on J3 is capable of accepting the radar data(if the radar supports UART communication).

I have some more queries that I have mentioned above, Please help me with those. Especially how to install the drivers, where to install it, and also how to access the data in ROS.

Than you for the responses.

@vinny @alex-kushleyev

Alex Kushleyev

Yes, I believe the system image v1.8.08 has all the above changes built applied. Easy way to confirm

voxl-camera-server -l and check the printed min gain. it should be 100 not 54. if you see 100, then you have the latest com.quite.tuned.default.bin
exposure control improvements should also be in there as of v1.8.05 (com.qti.sensor.ar0144.so). this is harder to test, but sdk 1.6.5 should have the latest. To test, cover up the camera to drive the exposure and gain to the max and then uncover and you should observe smooth transition, no jumps in image brightness.

it looks like we are not shipping com.qti.sensormodule.ar0144_fsin_3.bin in the system image right now, but like i mentioned earlier we are moving towards putting the camera drivers into the voxl-camera-server repository.. but for now you will need to manually copy that one.

Alex

Alex Kushleyev

example of voxl-px4 driver output when running voxl-px4 -d:

...
Starting VOXL ESC driver
INFO  [qshell] Send cmd: 'voxl_esc start'
INFO  [muorb] [uORB] Marking DeviceNode(qshell_req) as advertised in process_remote_topic
INFO  [muorb] [qshell] qshell gotten: voxl_esc start
INFO  [muorb] [qshell]   arg0 = 'voxl_esc'
INFO  [muorb] [qshell]   arg1 = 'start'
INFO  [uORB] Advertising remote topic actuator_outputs
INFO  [muorb] [voxl_esc] Starting VOXL ESC driver
INFO  [muorb] [voxl_esc] Params: VOXL_ESC_CONFIG: 1
INFO  [muorb] [voxl_esc] Params: VOXL_ESC_MODE: 0
INFO  [muorb] [voxl_esc] Params: VOXL_ESC_BAUD: 2000000
INFO  [muorb] [voxl_esc] Params: VOXL_ESC_FUNC1: 102
INFO  [muorb] [voxl_esc] Params: VOXL_ESC_FUNC2: 103
INFO  [muorb] [voxl_esc] Params: VOXL_ESC_FUNC3: 101
INFO  [muorb] [voxl_esc] Params: VOXL_ESC_FUNC4: 104
INFO  [muorb] [voxl_esc] Params: VOXL_ESC_SDIR1: 0
INFO  [muorb] [voxl_esc] Params: VOXL_ESC_SDIR2: 0
INFO  [muorb] [voxl_esc] Params: VOXL_ESC_SDIR3: 0
INFO  [muorb] [voxl_esc] Params: VOXL_ESC_SDIR4: 0
INFO  [muorb] [voxl_esc] Params: VOXL_ESC_PWR_MIN: 0.050000
INFO  [muorb] [voxl_esc] Params: VOXL_ESC_RPM_MIN: 2000
INFO  [muorb] [voxl_esc] Params: VOXL_ESC_RPM_MAX: 12000
INFO  [muorb] [voxl_esc] Params: VOXL_ESC_T_PERC: 90
INFO  [muorb] [voxl_esc] Params: VOXL_ESC_T_DEAD: 20
INFO  [muorb] [voxl_esc] Params: VOXL_ESC_T_EXPO: 35
INFO  [muorb] [voxl_esc] Params: VOXL_ESC_T_MINF: 0.150000
INFO  [muorb] [voxl_esc] Params: VOXL_ESC_T_COSP: 0.990000
INFO  [muorb] [voxl_esc] Params: VOXL_ESC_VLOG: 1
INFO  [muorb] [voxl_esc] Params: VOXL_ESC_PUB_BST: 1
INFO  [muorb] [voxl_esc] Params: VOXL_ESC_T_WARN: 0
INFO  [muorb] [voxl_esc] Params: VOXL_ESC_T_OVER: 0
INFO  [muorb] [voxl_esc] Params: GPIO_CTL_CH: 0
INFO  [muorb] [voxl_esc] Params: VOXL_ESC_CMD: 0
INFO  [muorb] [qshell] Ok executing command: voxl_esc start
INFO  [muorb] [voxl_esc] Opening UART ESC device 2, baud rate 2000000
INFO  [muorb] [voxl_esc] Successfully opened UART ESC device
INFO  [muorb] [voxl_esc] Detecting ESCs...
INFO  [muorb] [voxl_esc] 	ESC ID     : 0
INFO  [muorb] [voxl_esc] 	Board Type : 40: ModalAi 4-in-1 ESC (M0129-3)
INFO  [muorb] [voxl_esc] 	Unique ID  : 0x2039333557555313000F0036
INFO  [muorb] [voxl_esc] 	Firmware   : version   39, hash 9c6233d6
INFO  [muorb] [voxl_esc] 	Bootloader : version  184, hash 10bf24c8
INFO  [muorb] [voxl_esc] 	Reply time : 735us
INFO  [muorb] [voxl_esc] VOXL_ESC:
INFO  [muorb] [voxl_esc] 	ESC ID     : 1
INFO  [muorb] [voxl_esc] 	Board Type : 40: ModalAi 4-in-1 ESC (M0129-3)
INFO  [muorb] [voxl_esc] 	Unique ID  : 0x2039333557555313000F0032
INFO  [muorb] [voxl_esc] 	Firmware   : version   39, hash 9c6233d6
INFO  [muorb] [voxl_esc] 	Bootloader : version  184, hash 10bf24c8
INFO  [muorb] [voxl_esc] 	Reply time : 721us
INFO  [muorb] [voxl_esc] VOXL_ESC:
INFO  [muorb] [voxl_esc] 	ESC ID     : 2
INFO  [muorb] [voxl_esc] 	Board Type : 40: ModalAi 4-in-1 ESC (M0129-3)
INFO  [muorb] [voxl_esc] 	Unique ID  : 0x2039333557555313000F0034
INFO  [muorb] [voxl_esc] 	Firmware   : version   39, hash 9c6233d6
INFO  [muorb] [voxl_esc] 	Bootloader : version  184, hash 10bf24c8
INFO  [muorb] [voxl_esc] 	Reply time : 104us
INFO  [muorb] [voxl_esc] VOXL_ESC:
INFO  [muorb] [voxl_esc] 	ESC ID     : 3
INFO  [muorb] [voxl_esc] 	Board Type : 40: ModalAi 4-in-1 ESC (M0129-3)
INFO  [muorb] [voxl_esc] 	Unique ID  : 0x2039333557555313000F0038
INFO  [muorb] [voxl_esc] 	Firmware   : version   39, hash 9c6233d6
INFO  [muorb] [voxl_esc] 	Bootloader : version  184, hash 10bf24c8
INFO  [muorb] [voxl_esc] 	Reply time : 727us
INFO  [muorb] [voxl_esc] VOXL_ESC:
INFO  [muorb] [voxl_esc] Use extended rpm packet : 1
INFO  [muorb] [voxl_esc] All ESCs successfully detected
...

Alex Kushleyev

@jbiscan21 , have you tried the actuator test feature in QGC? make sure to remove propellers for safety.

Also, as px4 starts up, the voxl-esc px4 driver will detect the ESCs and print some information, similar to what the CLI tool does without PX4. You can run voxl-px4 in foreground and check. voxl-px4 -d

Alex

Alex Kushleyev

Hi @srydell , you should use hobby / fpv quadcopters to get started with learning how to fly quadcopters. Most of them are flown very similarly to Starling 2 Max and you should at least master the angle + thrust control mode (roll, pitch, yaw angle an thrust as the 4 controls / sticks). More advanced (acro) mode would require controlling angular rates + thrust, which is for expert flyers and is not needed. Position mode (x,y,z position and yaw) is the easiest but would require some kind of positioning system (gps or VIO, etc), but that is the easiest to learn, since if you just let go of the control sticks, the vehicle will remain in place.

Learning to fly in angle + thrust mode is most useful and it will also let you better understand the vehicle's flight dynamics.

We do not have suggested options for what to buy for flight practice, but you should probably buy something that uses BetaFlight as the flight controller (very popular on fpv drones), but avoid aggressive racing drones -- it is better to start with something that is designed for smooth flight and filming rather than racing.

Alex

Alex Kushleyev

Hi @dinesh-varun-kandiyappan ,

Please see follow up responses

If your IMX412 camera fails fisheye calibration, this is probably because the lens is not actually a fisheye. Please see the following post regarding a recent lens change : https://forum.modalai.com/topic/5321/imx412-m12-lens-difference

the new lens is rectilinear, so you should use the non-fisheye (plumb bob) model

The branch that saves the TOF calibration to a file is this one : https://gitlab.com/voxl-public/voxl-sdk/services/voxl-camera-server/-/tree/save-tof-v2-lens-cal . Sorry, we have not mainlined it yet. i will see if we can do that in the near future. see relevant post : https://forum.modalai.com/topic/5054/where-to-find-the-tof-and-hires-sensors-calibration

You may consider replacing your lens on IMX412 from the narrow one you have to a wider lens. We have the wide ones in stock and can get you a custom order if needed. Then you will see more features. The fisheye lens is about 30 degrees wider (horizontal FOV) than the non-fisheye.
VIO Features - maybe worth starting a separate post because it could be a long discussion and we could focus on that. Maybe make a new post with more details and we can get more folks on our team involved to look into it.

5.0 . PX4 params for Starling 2.. it looks like you may be correct.. double checking..

7.0 . We are testing Open Vins with rolling shutter cameras, let's discuss in another thread (see above).

8.0 . I don't think we have substantial updates to voxl-tflite-server.. will check.. and yes, qrb5165 is getting relatively old, so support for newer models can be difficult to get.

9.0 . If you are going to load up the cpu / gpu substantially, then a fan / heat spreader is needed. In general this is true for many mobile SoCs - they are powerful and efficient, but cannot sustain running at high utilization for long -- even phones can overheat and employ thermal throttling. My suggestion is to build up features / components one at a time and check your cpu / gpu utilization and thermal. Sometimes inefficient implementation of one component can overheat the whole system. also important to keep track of what resolution images you are using and make sure that you are not sending uncompressed images across regular (non-ION) pipes between processes..

before putting the second VOXL2 on the drone, you should proof everything on the bench. Starling 2 could certainly fit an extra VOXL2 mini. We don't have any official dates for VOXL3 yet, so it's best to focus on VOXL2. I will see if there is any info about VOXL3 we could share right now in terms of supporting newer inference models.
Can you please clarify what you mean by control policy? At what level are you training the control model (inputs and outputs?).

ModalAI Forum

Veteran

Posts

Member List