some general questions / issues with voxl2

mark

we recently started working with the voxl 2 recently, and we encountered a few problems which we hope you can help us with.

When we run voxl-configure-docker-support, and configure it such that it runs at startup, the voxl will not boot anymore, is this a known issue? This is when flashed with the SDK0.9 firmware as well as out of the box/
We are using libmodal-pipe in one of our programs and when building we get the error that the libmodal_pipe.so found on the drone has incompatible architecture, but when cloning the git repository for libmodal-pipe and building, and installing for native the system is able to build.
Trying to update to sdk-0.9 on the voxl, out of the box, the camera server is unable to update, because some source seems to be missing.
While testing we had the voxl2 mounted with an 180 degrees roll. We were able to change the extrinsics file for qvio, and vision-px4, but when calibrating the sensors with QGroundcontrol the system was unable to calibrate, because the px4 could not discern the right orientation it was in. The px4 was configures to have a roll of 180 degrees, and when calibrating the sensors while the drone was standing on the ground, px4 still thought it was upside down, and after trying to calibrate that orientation, it gave an error saying the z readout was in the wrong direction. Is it possible that there is a setting on the voxl2 that needs to be set when the voxl is mounted upside down?
For our system we control the exposure of the hires camera ourselves, but with the new camera server it seems to be impossible, because the hires is always set to ISP exposure mode, which does not react to the "set_exp_gain" command. Is it possible to allow for the hires auto exposure to be turned off?
Furthermore we are trying to use 2 hires camera's (imx214, and imx412) on the voxl2, but we are unsure how to do this. We tried copying the configuration file of 1 hires, and changing the cam_id, name, and type (in /etc/modalai/voxl-camera-server.conf). This results in an error saying the imx_412 is not a correct type. Configuring it as a imx214 gives a segmentation error. is it possible to configure 2 hires camera's on the voxl2?

Tamas Pal 0

I have also similar questions. How to change the gain expo of tracking qvio camera ?

Chad Sweet

When we run voxl-configure-docker-support, and configure it such that it runs at startup, the voxl will not boot anymore, is this a known issue? This is when flashed with the SDK0.9 firmware as well as out of the box/

You should never run voxl-configure-docker-support on VOXL 2. That command is for VOXL 1, Docker comes pre-configured on VOXL 2.

We are using libmodal-pipe in one of our programs and when building we get the error that the libmodal_pipe.so found on the drone has incompatible architecture, but when cloning the git repository for libmodal-pipe and building, and installing for native the system is able to build.

Are you following the build instructions at the project? Please follow the instructions and try again. You should be using this command ./build.sh qrb5165 and you can see that it is passing CI here

Trying to update to sdk-0.9 on the voxl, out of the box, the camera server is unable to update, because some source seems to be missing.

You need to upgrade the whole platform release, not just the SDK. the SDK depends on new features added in the system image. See instructions here

For our system we control the exposure of the hires camera ourselves, but with the new camera server it seems to be impossible, because the hires is always set to ISP exposure mode, which does not react to the "set_exp_gain" command. Is it possible to allow for the hires auto exposure to be turned off?

It seems that the updates we made to attempt to fix this are not working in the 0.9 release, we''ll look into this issue

Furthermore we are trying to use 2 hires camera's (imx214, and imx412) on the voxl2, but we are unsure how to do this. We tried copying the configuration file of 1 hires, and changing the cam_id, name, and type (in /etc/modalai/voxl-camera-server.conf). This results in an error saying the imx_412 is not a correct type. Configuring it as a imx214 gives a segmentation error. is it possible to configure 2 hires camera's on the voxl2?

This may be supported in beta soon. It is not currently supported in SDK 0.9

Chad Sweet

@Tamas-Pal-0 that is documented here

This post is deleted!

Hello @mark ,

Regarding:

Furthermore we are trying to use 2 hires camera's (imx214, and imx412) on the voxl2, but we are unsure how to do this. We tried copying the configuration file of 1 hires, and changing the cam_id, name, and type (in /etc/modalai/voxl-camera-server.conf). This results in an error saying the imx_412 is not a correct type. Configuring it as a imx214 gives a segmentation error. is it possible to configure 2 hires camera's on the voxl2?

We've just released a Beta System Image which will allow dual hires camera's. Previously, you could only have an IMX214 sensor on camera hardware ID 3, with the beta release, there is now support for either IMX214 or IMX412 on camera hardware ID's 0, 2, 3, and 4. For more information on the camera ID's refer to this VOXL 2 Camera Configs image showing the camera ID's. The only limitation is that you can only have 2 hires cameras (any combination of imx214 or imx412) running at once. You can still run 2 hires cameras + any other sensors.

Since this hires config is not yet standard, you will be required to create a custom camera configuration file. This will be located under /etc/modalai/voxl-camera-server.conf. For example, if you only have two hires cameras connected, your config file would look something like this:

{
        "version":      0.1,
        "cameras":      [{
                        "name": "hires1",
                        "enabled":      true,
                        "frame_rate":   30,
                        "type": "imx214",
                        "camera_id":    0,
                        "preview_width":        640,
                        "preview_height":       480,
                        "snapshot_width":       3840,
                        "snapshot_height":      2160
                }, {
                        "name": "hires2",
                        "enabled":      true,
                        "frame_rate":   30,
                        "type": "imx214",
                        "camera_id":    1,
                        "preview_width":        640,
                        "preview_height":       480,
                        "snapshot_width":       3840,
                        "snapshot_height":      2160
                }]
}

Note that the camera type will be imx214 regardless of if the camera is imx214 or imx412.

mark

@Chad-Sweet thanks for the reaction.
with regards to the libmodal-pipe, should it not be the case that we don't have to build this again from source?

mark

@Hector-Nevarez thanks we are going to try this.

If you're building any of our projects in the docker image, you should run the install_build_deps.sh script to pull the build dependencies from our remote repo, you won't have to rebuild any of the dependencies.

James Strawson

Regarding voxl-configure-docker-support, I tried and was unable to replicate it causing VOXL not to boot.

voxl-configure-docker-support isn't strictly necessary, it's just a handy tool to apt-install docker-ce from the internet and replace the official docker systemd service with one that we tweaked for VOXL.

I did find that the optional docker-autorun service was not starting on boot, that is now fixed in voxl-docker-support v1.2.5

If you are still seeing voxl-configure-docker-support preventing voxl from booting I can look into it more if you provide a full copy/paste of the output from running that command. Perhaps something is different between our configurations.