ModalAI Forum

@dan-jennings , I would be happy to help you with the Hadron Issues on newer SDKs. There were no changes to the Hadron (Boson + OV64B) functionaliy recently. Please make a new post for this issue and provide the following details: which SDK is working and which SDK(s) are not working for Hadron detailed description of the issue, any useful info from camera server or dmesg? how is Hadron connected to VOXL2? which interposers and which VOXL2 camera port (J6, J7, or J8) please provide voxl-camera-server.conf that you are using please provide a list of sensormodule.bin and *so files in /usr/lib/camera Thank you Alex

Can you plug the cable from the working drone into the other one? That could tell you if it's the cable.

Hi @jetson-nano Yes, the M0062 debug board provides a USB Hub for these types of use cases. However, be aware that the VBUS support on that platform is only 1A and may not cover all Doodle TX power modes. Please see this note: https://docs.modalai.com/cable-datasheets/#mcbl-00085 [image: 1786632437413-e9d1874c-d8a5-4362-8f66-cf78c8943164-image.jpeg]

@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. [image: 1786553696232-1d5d52fc-2b98-4178-b5c9-0d66e79cbf78-image.jpeg] [image: 1786553754701-a7217253-aca1-474e-ab18-a019bd517185-image.jpeg]

Also, there are many good simulators out there.

@MattK This is a generalized question but did your Starling Max 2 come with a ToF?

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

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?).

@Noah-Heinen Hello there, Yes, we haven't officially supported this package for a while, and our development drones currently do not ship STEREO_RAW8 format by default. However, even though there are no official plans for this repo, I made some changes that should solve the issue for now. This also expands to RAW8 images. Feel free to test it out, this repo will likely become community driven.

Hi Philip, I checked this on a VOXL 2. Adding a second subscriber to /run/mpa/mobilenet_tflite_data is a clean fan-out. The Modal Pipe Architecture creates a separate client connection for each subscriber, so the second subscriber does not consume or steal messages from voxl-tflite-server or from an existing subscriber. I tested this with an existing subscriber already running, then attached another subscriber to mobilenet_tflite_data. The system continued running normally and both consumed messages. See picture below. Only caveat is normal concerns about load and that a slow subscriber can miss data but won't affect other subscribers/server. The qrb5165 emulator should support the MPA/libmodal-pipe itself. The pipe can still exist without the board. However, mobilenet_tflite_data will not appear in the arb5165 emulator without additional setup. That pipe is published by voxl-tflite-server, which itself consumes a camera input pipe. The emulator does not provider an emulation of the physical VOXL2 camera pipeline by default. For simulation, I would start by testing the subscriber against recorded or synthetic MPA data rather than trying to emulate the full camera pipeline. Best, Sean [image: 1786389925636-screenshot-from-2026-08-10-14-13-30.png]

Hello @nostrain Please take a look at the ESC firmware changelog: https://gitlab.com/voxl-public/voxl-sdk/utilities/voxl-esc/-/blob/master/voxl-esc-tools/firmware/FIRMWARE_CHANGELOG.md support for the M0138 FPV ESC has been added in firmware V39 RC10, which is likely what you received (i assume the ESC is reasonably old, since we are now shipping with latest firmware) please note that only starting version V39.15, the ESC firmware sends back the exact version in format Vxy.ab -- so 39.00 could mean 39.10-39.15 also note that the firmware hash that you have (e4f576a0) is not listed in our firmware changelog, but it is essentially the V39 RC10 release (39.10). We will look into the changes. To help with this, are you able to share the approximate motor specs? (motor kv and what supply voltage you are using)? We can try to replicate. Are you able to test the firmware from this release and tell me how it behaves? https://gitlab.com/voxl-public/voxl-sdk/utilities/voxl-esc/-/tree/366d652e3680bb769d87dfca94f76b226481a6db/voxl-esc-tools/firmware . Initially we had a few releases that were not documented in the changelog (v0_39_RC10_a7f0bccb) Thank you Alex

Hi @dakota_ltu Under an NDA we could consider the ESC. However, even under NDA, we cannot share the VOXL 2 Schematics unless the recipient is also a Qualcomm licensee with their own NDA with Qualcomm. If that is still a path with value to you, please use this form: https://www.modalai.com/pages/contact-us

@sebastianp , sorry for the delay. There a lots of questions, let me start with what I can answer right away and will go from there. Hires Video Resolution: Starling 2 Max comes with dual IMX412 cameras (front, down-facing). IMX412 maximum resolution is 4056x3040, which is larger than 4K. 8K is not supported on Starling Max. In general, we do have support for one 8K camera (OV64B), which has maximum resolution of 9248x6944 and that resolution is supported only at 10FPS. The only way to get that camera right now is part of a Flir Hadron combo (Boson + Color camera), which is probably not what you are looking for. So the best bet for Starling 2 Max is to use the provided IMX412 camera. you can see some details regarding operating modes of IMX412 camera here : https://docs.modalai.com/camera-video/low-latency-video-streaming/#imx412-operating-modes Data Pipeline: our camera server application (voxl-camera-server) can publish processed YUV images via shared ION buffers (zero copy) and the user application can receive those buffers for processing without any cpu overhead for doing inter process communication to send the image data. you can also publish raw Bayer data (the exact data that comes from the camera) if that's what you mean by "raw" Optics: no optical zoom is supported on any of our cameras, only digital Onboard AI Compute and Performance I will need to check with colleagues and follow up. Flight Range, Autonomy & Control Starling 2 Max used PX4 as flight controller, so all the standard flight modes are supported Answers to additional questions Camera and Zoom integration: yes, raw and yuv frames can be shared with customer's C/C++ applications via shared buffers (or regular buffers via named pipes, which will have a lot of overhead for duplicating the data). No optical zoom is supported. Examples are available upon request We provide voxl-cross docker image which can be used to build the projects for VOXL2. Majority of ModalAI packages that run on VOXL2 are built using this cross-complier environment and can serve as examples how to build your own applications (you can find most packages here : https://gitlab.com/voxl-public/voxl-sdk) you can mount more hardware on Starling 2 Max, see the following thread regarding flight time : https://forum.modalai.com/topic/3732/starling-2-max-payload-capacity-and-flight-time-impact Frequency selection when you configure your starling 2 max (https://www.modalai.com/products/starling-2-max) , you can select several options and the SKU will change accordingly. The page also has explanation for the different SKU options, so it sounds like you will need: MRB-D0012-4-V4-C28-M11-T9-K2 C28 : dual tracking and dual hi-res cameras M11-T9 : Microhard and Microhard pMDDL2450 and Ghost Atto (2.4Ghz) it seems that this would be a custom SKU that you would need to request a quote for : https://www.modalai.com/pages/contact-us Ground Controller: If the drone ships with an RC transmitter, it should be already bound to the receiver. the controller and receive depends on the selection, see above regarding SKU and the shop page for more description note that the RC controller has no ability to display video, so there is no out-of-the-box ability to stream video without additional setup, such as external computer, display / goggles, etc. I hope that answered a lot of your questions, please let us know additional questions or need clarification regarding anything else. Alex

The Commando 8 user manual is available online

Hey Arvind, Could you try using this version of voxl-camera-server: http://voxl-packages.modalai.com/dists/qrb5165/dev/binary-arm64/voxl-camera-server_2.2.32-202607291154_arm64.deb Im able to get 2 camera streams, and every time I click the save picture button on QGC I see the snapshots saved without any issues. Heres some versions of my packages I am using: voxl-camera-server 2.2.32 voxl-mavcam-manager 0.6.1-202601081558 voxl-streamer 0.8.1

Hello there, @RoyAzriel said: 2d Lidar 50gram above the gps bridge 2 x light ilumination (front, down - we are flying and dark tunnels next to tracking cameras) props guards the are seen by the tracking camera we have added tof camera, moving from C28 to C29 ( currently its not working or wired in sw), we have changed the extrinsix.conf file in /etc/modalai accordingly. all of those changes did not effect our filght and we had good flight with good vio during the flight If the platform we are discussing has this added elements, it is a custom frame. @RoyAzriel said: we are exploting a tunnel for the first time.we use the poshold durung junction turns to hold in place during turbolance. my answer would be we can live with resets assuming we can accumulate the positions for mapping between the resets. Yes, so that is a mapping/loop closure software responsibility, not VIO. @RoyAzriel said: how do we make sure what you are saying is right and we are passing estimates to px4 ? Check your voxl-vision-hub.conf, if en_vio is set to true, it passes to PX4 as external vision estimates. Also rectified by: @RoyAzriel said: HGT_REF=3 //VIO EKF2_EV_QMIN=16 EKF2_EV_CTRL=15 For now, our PX4 flavour doesn't handle VIO resets gracefully always. We currently have overcome this issue by using VFC. Hence, the reason I suggested that you should try to repeat the same maneuver under VFC position. If you have any questions on how to enable VFC, please feel free to ask. @RoyAzriel said: what should I expect ? Likely more robust performance under resets at the potential cost of manually hover thrust, PID/PD tuning. PS: I wanted to try reproducing your setup here with non-modded Starling2 Max, but I am unable to match your setup without logs