Technical Questions on RB5

[adrianpang]

Hi, I am keen to acquire the Qualcomm Flight RB5 5G Drone Development Kit, but have a few questions that I wish to find out answers for:

(1) Is the PX4 and Qualcomm RB5 already loaded with the PX4 firmware and Ubuntu software? If so, which version of the PX4 firmware is loaded, and what Ubuntu software are pre-installed?
(2) Does the take off weight of 1235g exclude the weight of the payload of 1kg?
(3) Is the flight time of > 20 minutes inclusive of the weight of the payload of 1kg? If not, what is the maximum flight endurance of the drone with a 1kg payload?
(4) I assume that lithium polymer batteries are not included in the kit. Can you recommend the brand and model of the batteries that can be used together with the drone development kit to achieve the advertised flight endurance?
(5) Are spare parts of the drone development kit available for purchase? Examples: Landing gear, propellers, etc?

[Chad Sweet]

@adrianpang said in Technical Questions on RB5:

(1) Is the PX4 and Qualcomm RB5 already loaded with the PX4 firmware and Ubuntu software? If so, which version of the PX4 firmware is loaded, and what Ubuntu software are pre-installed?

Yes. It comes with Ubuntu 18.04 and PX4 as described here

(2) Does the take off weight of 1235g exclude the weight of the payload of 1kg?

yes

(3) Is the flight time of > 20 minutes inclusive of the weight of the payload of 1kg?

No

If not, what is the maximum flight endurance of the drone with a 1kg payload?

Flight time is dependent on weight, it would likely fly for half the time with 1kg payload

(4) I assume that lithium polymer batteries are not included in the kit. Can you recommend the brand and model of the batteries that can be used together with the drone development kit to achieve the advertised flight endurance?

You can purchase the following from ModalAI, but it is likely cheaper to purchase on your own. Gens Ace 11.1V 60C 3S 5000mAh Lipo Battery Pack With XT60 Plug

(5) Are spare parts of the drone development kit available for purchase? Examples: Landing gear, propellers, etc?

Yes. You can view all of our accessories here: https://www.modalai.com/collections/all

Please keep in mind, VOXL 2 is built using the Qualcomm Flight RB5 chipset and has all of the same processing power in a smaller package. The Sentinel is the VOXL 2 reference drone. The Qualcomm Flight RB5 does have built in WiFi, but the Sentinel is a better reference platform if you are planning to build your own drone around VOXL 2. Sentinel uses a WiFi add-on connected via USB.

[adrianpang]

Some follow-up questions:

(1) What are the main differences between Sentinel and the Qualcomm RB5 drone development kits?

(2) What is the expected flight endurance with a 600-700g of payload weight?

(3) Can I use LiHV (lithium high voltage) batteries instead to increase endurance? The operating voltage would be higher (e.g. 4.35V x 3 = 13.05V maximum)?

[adrianpang]

Hi,

Please help to take a look at the questions posted in the earlier post.

I have additional questions before making a purchase.

(1) Does VOXL2 support ArduPilot? If so how do we go about getting it onto it?

(2) Does the development kit come with a case that can be used to house the drone for transportation purposes?

(3) How many additional cameras can be added to the drone development kit and what are the interfaces available for that (e.g. MIPI CSI? USB3?)

[adrianpang]

Hi,

Anyone can help with the above two sets of questions?

[Eric Katzfey]

@adrianpang With regards to ArduPilot, VOXL2 is currently only able to run a version of PX4 on target. If you need ArduPilot you will have to use an external flight controller and connect it to VOXL2 with UART. We hope to have an implementation of ArduPilot that runs directly on VOXL2 in the future but there is no firm date on when this would be available.