ToF Performance Degrades as CPU heats up
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Hi,
I'm seeing degraded ToF performance when the CPU is operating at 60C versus 40C. Degraded means fewer point returns, at less of a max distance. Is this the expected behavior of the sensor?
System details:
- ToF:
M0040-1 (Legacy TOF) - VOXL2
- voxl-camera-server version
1.8.4 - System image:
1.7.1-M0054-14.1a-perf-nightly-20231009 - Kernel:
#1 SMP PREEMPT Tue Oct 10 03:21:29 UTC 2023 4.19.125
- ToF:
-
Hi,
I'm seeing degraded ToF performance when the CPU is operating at 60C versus 40C. Degraded means fewer point returns, at less of a max distance. Is this the expected behavior of the sensor?
System details:
- ToF:
M0040-1 (Legacy TOF) - VOXL2
- voxl-camera-server version
1.8.4 - System image:
1.7.1-M0054-14.1a-perf-nightly-20231009 - Kernel:
#1 SMP PREEMPT Tue Oct 10 03:21:29 UTC 2023 4.19.125
@Rowan-Dempster On the ground it's helpful to point a cheap desk fan at the drone while developing and debugging. Once it's in the air, there is unlimited airflow and things will cool down quickly.
- ToF:
-
@Rowan-Dempster On the ground it's helpful to point a cheap desk fan at the drone while developing and debugging. Once it's in the air, there is unlimited airflow and things will cool down quickly.
if CPU was causing the issue, then you would see slower FPS, not degraded performance.
This sounds like the actual TOF sensor is heating up and at some point starts throttling itself by reducing the emitted power, which helps cool it down.
You could test it by selectively cooling TOF sensor (and not voxl) and see if performance goes back up.
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