@Samuel-Lehman , currently VOXL2 (M0154 variant, but not M0054 or VOXL2 mini M0104) has hardware support for display port output, the software is not available (no ETA at this point). VOXL2 is not intended to be used as a desktop computer, although it could be :).

However, if you just want to stream video without wifi / ethernet, you can actually use a cool trick : ADB port forwarding:

plug in USBC cable from your VOXL2 in to linux pc run the following command to create a forwarding tunnel between voxl port 80 to port 8080 of your linux machine : adb forward tcp:8080 tcp:80

If you have voxl-camera-server and voxl-portal already running, you should be able to view the camera streams in the browser at http://localhost:8080/video.html?cam=hires_color or something like that (depending on your camera name). I just tested it and it works well. You can use voxl-portal as you normally would, when using an network connection.

A few notes

please make sure to use SDK 1.3.4 or later or at least voxl-portal because we recently added a fix for voxl-portal to work with port forwarding : https://gitlab.com/voxl-public/voxl-sdk/services/voxl-portal/-/network/master?ref_type=heads voxl-portal can also display h264 video, but it needs a fix that i am working on and is almost done.

If this approach would work for you, you can test the non-encoded streams and we'll get the fix for h264 into voxl-portal soon.

Alex

@soraminds , VOXL2 supports SoftAP mode (access point), so you can set up your drone(s) to be access points and that should allow your ground sensors to connect to the drone. See https://docs.modalai.com/sentinel-user-guide-connect-network/ , specifically see usage for voxl-wifi:

voxl-wifi softap Usage -- voxl-wifi Description: Configure the Wi-Fi mode. Usage: voxl-wifi getmode Print the current Wi-Fi mode (softap or station) voxl-wifi softap <ssid> [password] Set Wi-Fi to 2.4ghz access point mode (ch6). Default password is '1234567890' voxl-wifi softap5 <ssid> [password] Set Wi-Fi to 5ghz access point mode (ch149). Default password is '1234567890' voxl-wifi station <ssid> [password] Set Wi-Fi to station mode and connect to the access point with the given SSID and password (if provided). voxl-wifi factory Set Wi-Fi configuration to factory defaults. This will set the Wi-Fi to 5ghz access point mode, with SSID 'VOXL-[MAC address]' and password '1234567890'.

@groupo , can you please provide some more details:

are you using voxl-streamer to stream an h264 / h265 encoded stream (generated by voxl-camera-server) or is voxl-streamer consuming raw frames (raw8 or yuv) and encoding them to h264 / h265? If the input to voxl-streamer is not encoded, then voxl-streamer will encode them (using hardware video encoder) voxl-streamer is not set up to resize the image, so the image size is defined by the source that is providing the images or encoded video stream (most likely voxl-camera-server). you can modify your /etc/modalai/voxl-camera-server.conf to change the resolution of the stream that you are feeding into voxl-streamer (such as preview, small_video, large_video, etc) and that should automatically be reflected in the resolution that voxl-streamer outputs.

Feel free to provide more specific details about which exact stream (name) you are feeding into voxl-streamaer or let me know if you have any other questions.

Alex

@bendraper , ah, yes the feature is available and I can see how the naming is misleading.

In order to achieve the CBR + CQP functionality, you do the following:

select cbr mode just like normal CBR specify maximum bit rate, lets say 1.5 mbit, which is the lowest we can currently do with h264 now if you want to achieve lower bitrate when there is not much motion (instead of always forcing the desired bit rate), set _venc_Qmin to a larger number (than the default 15 or so).

Basically by default _venc_Qmin is very low, which means the encoder is allowed to increase the image quality (decrease quantization level) if there is not much motion, so that you meet the target constant bit rate.

By increasing this Qmin, you will not allow the encoder to keep increasing the quality under low motion condition, so it will cap the maximum quality level (Qmin) and reduce bandwidth. You can start with values of Qmin at 20, 25, 30 and see how low your bandwidth will get when not moving. When you start moving the camera, the bitrate should jump up to the CBR value, if needed. Please note that the quantization factor Qmin is not linear, i don't have the exact formula.

In general what happens in the encoder, if you want to maintain some CBR, the Quantization level is dynamically changed (within allowed range) depending on how much image is changing, so lots of motion in image will result in lowering overall quality (increasing quantization) in order to still be able to fit within the allowed CBR bitrate budget.

Please try it out and let me know how that works for you..

Alex

@svempati ,

It should work (that is to say, we have tested QVIO with OV9782), although this is not our standard configuration. You need to modify your /etc/modalai/voxl-qvio-server.conf file accordingly:

update cam_name to match the output pipe of the monochrome image from ov9782), you can double check the name using voxl-portal update camera calibration file (intrinsics) and position / orientation w.r.t IMU (extrinsics) of the new camera. It will help if you position and orient your new camera exactly the same as the old tracking camera

Did you try this?

Alex

@Trinadh , how large of oscillations in height are you observing? As a rule of thumb, there are about 12 Pascals in 1 meter change of altitude at Sea Level, so based on your data you may have seen fluctuations of about 1 meter (peak to peak)?

Alex

@Jeremy-Frederick , the python test script works, you may have an older version of it, we had commented out something by accident (the line you mentioned), but it is fixed now : https://gitlab.com/voxl-public/voxl-sdk/utilities/voxl-esc/-/blob/master/voxl-esc-tools/voxl-esc-gpio.py

Double check that you have ESC firmware 39.18 and should be good to test with python script while px4 is not running (as a first step). then you can set up your channel mapping as Tom suggested..

Hopefully that works for you!

Alex

@nuallaino

On more recent versions of the Starling 2 Max we moved the GPS to the back of the drone. I'll reach out to you via PM regarding updating your Starling Max.

We just discovered a source of EMI which is the cable running to the optional Lepton sensor socket. For a number of reasons we've not offered Lepton as an option of Starling 2 Max yet so you can safely disconnect the 8-pin JST SH connector on the front left side of your camera breakout board next to the barometer cap. This will improve GPS performance. Please see picture below.

alt text

@Bernhard When we released the 5G version of the Starling Max we also moved the GPS to the back of the drone and specified smaller LTE antennas which those landing gear were designed to fit. I'll reach out to you via PM regarding updating your Starling Max.

We just discovered a source of EMI which is the cable running to the optional Lepton sensor socket. For a number of reasons we've not offered Lepton as an option of Starling 2 Max yet so you can safely disconnect the 8-pin JST SH connector on the front left side of your camera breakout board next to the barometer cap. This will improve GPS performance. Please see picture below.

alt text

@paul-foley , we do not have a repository for images.

My suggestions would be:

try using training sets from other sources (as you have been trying), but I don't have a specific reference in order to better match the 3rd party datasets to your use case, you should try to do the following: transform the 3rd party images to make them look more similar to what you are looking for (crop, zoom, resize, adjust color, etc). This can be automated transform the images collected on Starling to some standard, for example you can perform fisheye un-distortion to make them look more like the images taken from non-fisheye cameras from your training set, similarly adjust color if needed (white balance).

In general, if you can somehow standardize your images, and convert the 3rd party images to the same standard, you can greatly benefit from the large data sets that you could find online. The only down side that when running the model online, you will need to transform your images in real time, but that should not be a big deal. If you need to, I can help you with some GPU-based examples to do image transformation very quickly, but you should first make sure that this approach will work for you first (and optimize later 🙂 )

I hope this helps..

Alex

@plub , sorry for the delay. By start the calibration, I meant launch the voxl-calibrate-camera app and view the calibration stream via voxl-portal (it seems you have it working).

Is it possible for you to paste a video of a screen recording while you are doing the calibration (screen record the voxl-portal stream).

Thank you

Alex

Hi @Stefan-Amundarain,

Thanks for sharing the video. A few comments and questions:

The fast blinking after power is applied is the bootloader signaling that it has loaded and is waiting to see if there is a firmware update The bootloader times out after 1 second and starts executing firmware, if there is valid firmware. The bootloader does not make any beeps. If there is no valid firmware, the ESC (channel) will stay in bootloader and will blink continuously (fast, about 5hz, the same rate as during initial 1 s). In your case, the firmware is valid on all 4 channels and the fast blinking stops after 1 second and firmware loads. The firmware does start and makes a short beep. However, after the beep, there should also be a 2 slower LED flashes, controlled by the firmware (you can check that on a working ESC). I do not see it here, so it looks like something bad happens right after the motor beep. I see that you are using metal nuts to fasten the ESC to your frame, however there are some test points that are very close (top right corner). It is possible that the metal nuts or standoffs on the other side are touching a component or a test point. also, what is actually powering the ESC, is it a power supply or a battery? If you have a power supply which can display current draw, i would recommend setting the voltage to 16V or so, and look at the power draw as this "cycling" occurs. Please note that using power supply for motor testing is not recommended due to potential voltage spikes due to regenerative braking : more infor here, however for a smoke test, a power supply works well. the fact that 5V is sagging (this is 5V 6A !!) potentially means that there is an upstream power supply issue (related to the question what are you using to power the ESC) Or there could be a 5V (almost) short, which causes the 5V regulator to enter over-current mode. The 5V power supply feeds into 3.3V LDO regulator for the ESC MCUs, so if there is an issue with 5V, the ESC will be affected. Please make sure that there is nothing connected to the 5V and inspect area around 5V regulator for any damage. You can reference the component diagram from here - area labeled as VOXL PWR Regulator right next to the array of bulk caps in the middle of the ESC diagram

The ESCs are fully flashed and spin tested during production, so something potentially happened afterwards.

To summarize..

please unmount the ESC from the standoffs and inspect for damage, try to apply power again if there is no visible damage try using a power supply to measure the current during these cycles. The steady state current draw should be about 0.02-0.03A at 16V (depending on whether LEDs are blinking, etc) inspect the ESC PCB around the 5V regulator

Please let me know if you discover anything else unusual and we will go from there! Thanks!

Alex

@jcai You'll need to re-flash the latest SDK and select a kernel option for M0173 support. Different kernels are required to unlock different camera configs

@henrytrinh yes this is possible with external storage - you can leverage a USB2.0 or 3.0 and connect a microsd adapter and then mount the drive.

Zach

@Daniel-Ryu same here. Please let me know if you figured it out.

@Vinny Thanks for sharing across a detailed response. I'll test the setup and get back in case of any doubts.