Development on Starling V2

kerct · 3 Aug 2023, 03:18

I have a Starling V2 with me and have went through the VOXL developer bootcamp. I would like to develop custom applications on it, but the technical docs for that have not been updated for a while. When will it be ready? Can we at least have access to the older versions of the docs for reference so that we can start somewhere?

Also, how can we setup HITL for Starling? For VOXL2, we should connect to the J18 port but this is already connected to the ESC on Starling. Can we have a guide for that too?

Thank you.

Eric Katzfey · 3 Aug 2023, 15:44

@kerct Regarding HITL it was not supported in the initial px4 release in SDK 1.0.0 but it is supported in the most recent version here: http://voxl-packages.modalai.com/dists/qrb5165/staging/binary-arm64/voxl-px4_1.14.0-2.0.43_arm64.deb. But you will need to get access to that UART port so you will have to unplug the ESC connector and plug in the HITL serial cable there. Documentation should be updated early next week.

kerct · 6 Sept 2023, 08:52

@Eric-Katzfey I'm using the staging version but it doesn't recognise the command "voxl-px4-hitl" as shown in the screenshot below. Am I doing anything wrong?

Also, I'm still waiting for the documentation for developing custom VOXL applications https://docs.modalai.com/mpa-development/

Eric Katzfey · 6 Sept 2023, 17:53

@kerct Yes, sorry, there are 3 missing files for HITL in the package. These can be found in our fork of the px4 firmware here: https://github.com/modalai/px4-firmware/tree/voxl-dev. The 3 files are voxl-px4-hitl, voxl-px4-hitl-start, and voxl-px4-hitl-set-default-parameters.config. voxl-px4-hitl and voxl-px4-hitl-start need to be placed in /usr/bin and voxl-px4-hitl-set-default-parameters.config needs to be placed in /etc/modalai. These three files will be added to future package releases.

kerct · 8 Sept 2023, 04:19

@Eric-Katzfey Besides voxl-px4 is there a way to simulate other services like voxl-vision-hub? In particular I would like to simulate the VOA behaviour

Eric Katzfey · 8 Sept 2023, 15:33

@kerct Not that I am aware of. You could look into Gazebo and see if there is a way to add that. Or you could create your own Gazebo extension to do this.