# Unable to setup VIO on external flight controller

Source: https://forum.modalai.com/topic/2082/unable-to-setup-vio-on-external-flight-controller
Category: General Questions (https://forum.modalai.com/category/2/general-questions)
Tags: vio, external fc, position-mode, voxl2
Posted: 2023-04-18 16:12:04 UTC by KevinChan
Replies: 6 · Views: 2511

## KevinChan · 2023-04-18 16:12:04 UTC

Unable to setup VIO on external flight controller.
I have set up and received Mavlink odometry message from Voxl 2. 
I have also set up the EKF2_AID_MASK value to 280. 
But I am still unable to switch to position mode with the error code "check for position estimate"

POSITION_TARGET_LOCAL_NED xyz values are nan.
What am I missing?
Thank you~

![e0631970-6055-4ed9-a6ac-993921d6426e-image.png](https://forum.modalai.com/assets/uploads/files/1681833937015-e0631970-6055-4ed9-a6ac-993921d6426e-image.png)

## Reply by Chad Sweet (ModalAI staff) · 2023-04-18 16:16:58 UTC

In our troubleshooting VIO guide [here](https://docs.modalai.com/flying-with-vio/#position-mode-rejected), it says: 

If LOCAL_POSITION_NED and MAVLink Odometry message are reading 0 for X and Y after movement of the robot, it is likely PX4’s EKF2 is set to require a magnetomter to initialize.

PX4 1.12 and later have the following parameters which enable using VIO without a magnetometer:

```
## disable mag
SYS_HAS_MAG	0
EKF2_MAG_TYPE	5
```

## Reply by KevinChan · 2023-04-18 16:29:16 UTC

@Chad-Sweet said in [Unable to setup VIO on external flight controller](/post/9724):
> EKF2_MAG_TYPE	5

I have set both parameters.
I have also set EKF2_HGT_MODE to vision.
And it's still not working :(

In fact, LOCAL_POSITION_NED is nowhere to be found in mavlink, only POSITION_TARGET_LOCAL_NED, are they the same?
I am currently using PX4 1.13.3
Thank you for your swift reply~

## Reply by KevinChan · 2023-04-22 08:21:13 UTC (in reply to Chad Sweet)

@Chad-Sweet After about a week of debugging, turns out external flight controller only works on the older version of firmware, VOXL2 Platform 0.9.
Instead of the newest one VOXL2 Platform 1.3.1-0.8 or VOXL2 Platform 1.2.1-0.7.
PLEASE state it in your documentation!
I initially need to install the 1.2 version since I need to communicate with VOXL2 IO
Thank you

## Reply by Chad Sweet (ModalAI staff) · 2023-04-22 19:01:14 UTC

Thank you for bringing this to our attention. There could be a regression. Our latest platform image is 0.9.5 which corresponds to system image 1.5.5 . Can you please help clarify which version you found not to work? Maybe there is a mismatch with what you are trying to achieve?

https://docs.modalai.com/voxl2-system-image/#155-platform-release-095

## Reply by KevinChan · 2023-04-24 23:43:00 UTC (in reply to Chad Sweet)

@Chad-Sweet Platform 1.3.1-0.8 and Platform 1.2.1-0.7 doesn't work, 0.9.5 works. Didn't try 0.9

## Reply by tom (ModalAI staff) · 2023-04-24 23:44:23 UTC

@KevinChan 0.9.5 is the newest, 0.9 is second newest, 1.3.1-0.8  (0.8) is super old. We changed our naming scheme some time ago so I can understand the confusion