VOXL 2 Mini: technical questions for a custom indoor inspection drone (SLAM, precision landing, cameras)
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Hi ModalAI team,
Reposting here under VOXL Dev Kits (also asked in the VOXL Flight Deck sub-forum). A few technical questions for our indoor GPS-denied inspection PoC — a compact custom quadcopter (X4) airframe built around the VOXL 2 Mini.
[SLAM / autonomy]
- VOA performance in narrow (~300 mm) corridors — any pipe / industrial refs?
- Open-VINS is pure VIO (no loop closure) — for repeated long flights, is Mapper + AprilTag re-localization enough to bound drift?
[Precision landing]
- voxl-vision-hub provides AprilTag relocalization but notes it "does not yet support autonomous takeoff and landing." Is a fully automated AprilTag precision landing onto a charging dock achievable using the VOXL SDK alone (voxl-tag-detector / voxl-vision-hub + PX4 precision-land), without us writing our own landing logic? If so, what is the recommended setup? If some part still needs custom development, which part?
[Cameras / sensors]
- VOXL 2 Mini has 4 MIPI-CSI. Using 2 for VIO + 1 downward for precision landing = 3. Can a 4th camera (gimbal / thermal) be added, and how?
- For the downward precision-landing camera, is MSU-M0166 (AR0144 micro-coax) the right choice? Can that downward AR0144 be shared by both VIO and the voxl-tag-detector (AprilTag) at the same time?
- Recommended ToF module for collision avoidance?
[Airframe / drivetrain]
- Is VOXL ESC Mini (M0129) compatible with our own motor selection (DShot/PWM) in a standard quadcopter (X4) configuration?
- Any thermal / layout guidance for integrating VOXL 2 Mini + ESC Mini into a custom ducted-cage airframe?
[Mission / comms]
- Vision Hub: can an external host (our charging station) send trajectories and trigger auto takeoff / landing?
- WiFi 2.4 GHz stability indoors — recommended radio module?
Note: We don't have hardware yet (pre-purchase), so voxl-version / voxl-inspect-services / PX4 logs are not available at this stage.
Thanks!
JinHyeok Kim, Pablo Air
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