Topics created by AP123

@AP123 please contact us before testing a replacement ESC - we need to figure out what happened and prevent such failure in the future. I am working on enabling thermal protection on the ESC, which will reduce power and shut off ESC in order to prevent catching on fire. Before you test again, I would like you to use the updated firmware with such protection.

Thank you

Alex

@Abdullah01 , the original issue was that ESC calibration was actually done without propellers mounted, you can see the current at 94% power was very small, 0.4A

However, the script still produced the a0, a1, a2 parameters (which would have been wrong to use because calibration was done without a propeller..)

The error at the end was a result of attempted plot - since voxl2 does not have a display attached, the plot failed. Since that version, we have transitioned to using plotly for plotting, and calibration plots are saved to disk in addition to attempt to plot it to display. The plot feature was updated after SDK 1.1.2 release, but you can get it directly from gitlab here : https://gitlab.com/voxl-public/voxl-sdk/utilities/voxl-esc/-/blob/dev/voxl-esc-tools/voxl-esc-calibrate.py (just get the whole voxl-esc repo from dev branch on your voxl2 and run the calibration procedure).

Meanwhile, we will add additional checking of the calibration to catch the conditions that do not look like proper calibration (when propeller is not mounted, etc..).

HI @AP123, you can find information about calibration for M0134 here. The calibration procedure in voxl2_io driver in voxl-px4 is not designed to work with 4 in 1 ESC, it is for off the shelf ESCs such as BLHeli. Additional information about if you need to calibrate your 4 in 1 ESC can be found in this repo.

I believe we already provide parameters (calibration) for 4 in 1 ESC for certain motor/propeller combinations which can be loaded via voxl-esc utility on voxl2.

From tech docs:

Q: When is ESC Calibration Required? A: When switching battery types (from 3S LiPo to 4S LiPo, etc), or when a new type of motor or new type of propeller is used.

@Moderator Any idea where in the code i would do that? Trying to understand the code but it is a little confusing, a lot of your variables are initialized with pass through values.

@AP123 you can try decreasing the maximum disparity in the DFS server, please see the following:

https://gitlab.com/voxl-public/voxl-sdk/services/qrb5165-dfs-server/-/blob/master/src/config_file.h?ref_type=heads#L67 . The config file for DFS is located here : /etc/modalai/voxl-dfs-server.conf -- you can update the param.

Since the propellers are very close to the cameras, the disparity for those pixels will be very large. Decreasing maximum disparity should help filter out points that are too close.

Alternatively, you can look into the collision prevention code and add logic to ignore points that are too close.

Finally you can modify the DFS code to just blank out the (rectangular) part of image that sees the propellers before processing. I do not know if a mask is supported, but setting a certain area to 0 or 255 should achieve the effect of "ignoring".

I would try decreasing the maximum disparity first, that is the easiest, but not too much since you could be ignoring true obstacles.

@James-Strawson anything else @AP123 can try?

Alex

Hi there, looks like there's some confusion with what mode is being tested. Here's some clarification. PX4 has 2 approaches to handling obstacle distance data:
a. Obstacle Avoidance(OA) feature which stops the aircraft if object detection occurs from the voxl-voa service. This requires CP_* parameters set that you can compare with your drone listed here based on your application.

b. Collision Prevention(CP) feature, which not only includes OA, but also rerouting capability in all autonomous modes (position, alt, mission, offboard) and leverages the same voxl-voa service. This requires not only the CP_* parameters but also requires COM_OBS_AVOID = enable.

If your application requires (a), you can leave com_obs_avoid = disable and OA should work out of the box as is. If your application requires (b), then we have discovered a software bug in the VOA service. And the main reason you get the "collision module not ready", no arm possible. It has been corrected [code here] and binaries will be available in our gitlab daily builds shortly.

@AP123 voxl-rtsp is no longer supported and is not mentioned in that document, you need to use voxl-streamer

Hi @AP123
Can you please send a pic of your setup, and indicate which chip is hot?
It is most likely plugged into the wrong port/connector, or a cabling pinout issue.
A high res image will help us diagnose.
Thanks!

No, the M0065 is not supported in SDK 1.0.0. There will be an SDK update within the next two weeks that should enable support.

@AP123 I'm guessing that voxl-px4 is running and the voxl-esc commands are not able to stop it. You can try to do this manually. Run systemctl disable voxl-px4 and then reboot. You should then be able to use the voxl-esc tools. After you are done use systemctl enable voxl-px4 to get voxl-px4 on auto start again.

@AP123 Cool, check out that unbricking guide, that should fix your issue.

@tom Thank You!