Hi Devs,
hi @Alex-Kushleyev

We are currently integrating an FLIR Hadron camera with our VOXL2-based drone.
As we wish to utilize the triple tracking capability, we also aim to connect three tracking cameras to the board.
Is there any way this setup is possible?

We have the M0181 board that should connect the Hadron to the VOXL2 flight controller.
As far as we understand the documentation, this board is only supported when plugged into the J7 connector of the flight controller.

(See also: https://docs.modalai.com/voxl2-hadron/#connect-m0181-to-voxl2-mini-j7-or-voxl2)
This setup would make it impossible to connect the M0173 Starling 2 Front End, which would give us the possibility to run the tracking cameras.

Is there any other configuration we can use that would allow us to use the Hadron and the three tracking cameras in parallel?

Thank you very much for your help!

Best regards,
Fabian

Hi Devs,
hi @Alex-Kushleyev

We are currently integrating an FLIR Hadron camera with our VOXL2-based drone.
As we wish to utilize the triple tracking capability, we also aim to connect three tracking cameras to the board.
Is there any way this setup is possible?

We have the M0181 board that should connect the Hadron to the VOXL2 flight controller.
As far as we understand the documentation, this board is only supported when plugged into the J7 connector of the flight controller.

(See also: https://docs.modalai.com/voxl2-hadron/#connect-m0181-to-voxl2-mini-j7-or-voxl2)
This setup would make it impossible to connect the M0173 Starling 2 Front End, which would give us the possibility to run the tracking cameras.

Is there any other configuration we can use that would allow us to use the Hadron and the three tracking cameras in parallel?

Thank you very much for your help!

Best regards,
Fabian

@Viktor-Gal @Maxwell-Schaefer Thanks for the question! I would also like to know if we can upgrade the Receiver firmware to 3.5.X and still use it with the VOXL2 flightcontroller.

@Eric-Katzfey Have you had any chance looking into the issue?

Thanks @Eric-Katzfey!
Let me know if I can provide anything from my side.

@Eric-Katzfey Thanks again!
First, we stop any running uvc-server and streamer. Then we define the voxl-uvc-server settings using voxl-uvc-server -r 160x120 -f 9.
Next we opened a new terminal and started the voxl-streamer with the default settings voxl-streamer -v 0.
In the terminal it shows that it took some default options (w: 1024, h:768, fps: 30), which are not the settings we defined voxl-uvc-server.
As expected, the stream failed to open in VLC.

We now found that when overriding the input pipe specified in the config file to uvc with voxl-streamer -i uvc -v 0, it takes the correct values as defined in voxl-uvc-server -r 160x120 -f9.

After attempting to open the stream in VLC it crashes after a few frames.
The error messages vary every time we re-start the stream.

No. 1:

No. 2:

Do you know how we can solve this issue?

@Eric-Katzfey and @modaltb Thanks for your help!
Unfortunately, I still couldn't get the camera to work.
To make sure it wasn't an SDK issue, I updated it to voxl-suite 1.4.1 and ran the drone's wifi in station mode.
Both the drone and the Linux laptop are connected to my smartphone's hotspot.

As suggested, I first stopped the voxl-uvc-server and the voxl-streamer.
Then I started the voxl-uvc-server with the correct Lepton camera configuration and got this error:

"uvc_get_stream_ctrl_format_size failed
width, height, and or framerate likely not supported
run voxl-uvc-server -l to list supported resolutions for your camera"

To do what you suggested, I opened a new terminal window and opened the /etc/modalai/voxl-streamer.conf file.

I then started the streamer with verbose output and saw that, as expected, the configuration had not been updated:

To check if there was an actual stream available, I ran nmap on the laptop and saw that port 8900 was still not open:

As expected I also didn't see any RTSP stream using VLC.

Is there anything else I can try?

@Eric-Katzfey Thanks for your reply!

When running voxl-uvc-server -r 160x120 -f 9 I get the following:

So it looks like the voxl-uvc-server is already running in the background.
When I open VLC Network Stream (udp://@:4242) I can't see the camera stream.

After I stopped it with CTRL-C, I typed systemctl stop voxl-streamer and started voxl-streamer -c uvc-flir-lepton.
This is the output:

When checking the stream via VLC I still don't see anything.

@modaltb I just wanted to follow up on the issue I described before.
Do you know what causes this behavior?

Thanks for your help!

@modaltb Thanks a lot for your help!

I have now tried to run the FLIR Lepton connected to this board (https://media.digikey.com/pdf/Data Sheets/GroupGets PDFs/PURETHERMAL-M_3-14-19.pdf) to limit the amount of additional hardware changes. For this I connected a USB splitter to the USB port, where the WiFi dongle is. Then I added the Flir Lepton via USB as well as the WiFi dongle (see photo below).

By typing in "lsusb" I can see the camera as a connected webcam device.
Then I configure the voxl-uvc-server with "voxl-uvc-server -r 160x120 -f 9" and the voxl-streamer with "voxl-streamer -c uvc-flir-lepton".

When I switch to the VOXL web portal, I can actually see that an additional "UVC" camera stream is available.
However, it doesn't show the video stream (see attached screenshot) and shows a resolution of "0x0" and a format type of "IMAGE_FORMATt_YUV422_UYVY".

I was also unable to start the stream using VLC as described in the manual (https://docs.modalai.com/voxl-uvc-flir/).
But I was able to see the video as an ASCII stream, so it seems like some data is actually being streamed.
Is it possible that there is a problem with the video format being used?

I have tested the camera and breakout board on my laptop and it works fine.

I have also tried accessing the video via QGroundcontrol but have had no luck.
Do you know of any way to actually switch between the different video streams in QGroundcontrol?
At the moment I can only open the high-resolution front camera stream.

Thanks again for your help!

Hi devs,
I recently received the Starling 2 drone for our lab and went trough the bootcamp.
For our use case we will need to add a thermal camera, to be able to stream/save the thermal video.

Based on the documentation, I found that the FLIR Lepton as well as the FLIR Boson seem to be the most straight forward possibilities.
Nevertheless, I'm not sure about the details on how to add the cameras to the drone.

FLIR Lepton:
Are there any updates about the FLIR Lepton camera integration?
I'm aware that the Starling already comes with an added Lepton connector, but I haven't read anything about it being already running and integrated with the software.

In case a I/O Module is required, can you suggest which of the available boards to chose from?
Mini USB: https://groupgets.com/products/purethermal-mini-usb
JST: https://groupgets.com/products/purethermal-mini-pro-jst-sr
Other: https://groupgets.com/products/purethermal-breakout-board

According to the online guide (https://docs.modalai.com/voxl-uvc-flir/) for VOXL 1 (not sure if this is also valid for VOXL2?), at least an additional USB expansion board will be required.
Is this also true for using the Lepton with the MINI USB I/O board or could I actually connect it via the VOXL2 flightcomputer's USB C interface?
In case this is not an option, do the other I/O board require additional hardware as well or is there a more straight forward option for the VOXL2?

FLIR Boson
Regarding the FLIR BOSON option I have found this documentation:
https://docs.modalai.com/m0153/
Can we already purchase this adapter to enable a straight forward connection?

Alternatively, I found the following FLIR Boson I/O board online: https://www.flircameras.com/rhp-bos-usbc-if.htm
Would it be an option to connect the board with the Starling flightcomputer's USB-C?

Thank you very much for your help!