Hello,
I just got several new ToF sensors and need to connect them to my quadcopter. I noticed that to work correctly this sensors requires VOXL SDK >= v1.2.
Is there any way I can still use it right now with SDK v1.1.3? Do you have any code I can try it out? I really need to use them ASAP.
Thanks
@Eric-Katzfey I see! But is the sensor somewhere in the PX4 Autonomy Development Kit drone or it is not there at all?
Thanks
Hello,
I just bought a PX4 Autonomy Developer Kit since I noticed from this that the VL53L1X sensor is used as a landing sensor. Can you please explain how this sensor is connected to the VOXL and how I can set the PX4 to use it correctly?
Thanks a lot for your time
Hello,
I just upgraded my VOXL2 from voxl2_platform_0.9.5 to voxl2_SDK_1.1.1 and noticed that my suite of sensors is not running properly anymore. I have a ToF, hires IMX214, and tracking cameras connected to the VOXL2 and I can see all the cameras streamed correctly on voxl-portal using voxl2_platform_0.9.5.
However, as soon as I flash the new voxl2_SDK_1.1.1 (same problem with voxl2_SDK_1.0) only the ToF camera is shown on the voxl-portal but the tracking and hires do not stream data.
After checking the voxl-inspect-services I can see that the voxl-camera-service is running correctly even if the tracking and hires cameras are not working.
To double-check the cameras connection I run voxl-camera-service 4 (i.e. only hires and tracking ) and I am able to see the tracking and hires camera working on the voxl-portal.
Same if I run only ToF with voxl-camera-service 9 as the ToF is correctly streaming while the other cameras are off.
The problem arises only once I set voxl-camera-service 6 which is supposed to run all the 3 cameras but only the ToF is streamed while the hires and tracking are stuck.
To finish double check things I quickly changed the voxl sdk to 0.9.5 and after setting voxl-camera-service 6 everything worked fine again and all the 3 cameras were streamed correctly confirming that it was not a hardware problem but a software condition.
What can I do to solve this problem? I need to use the new SDK since it has a lot of advantages w.r.t. 0.9.5 but of course I need all the cameras to work properly.
Thank you very much for your time and I can send you more info, including screenshots if needed.
Thanks a lot
Hello,
I noticed on your website the new Starling product and it looks great. The same link mentions that "Optional Doodle Labs Microhard or 4G/5G for cellular carrier-based networks ".
What is the lead time for a Starling while mounting the Doodle Labs radio?
Thanks a lot for your time and availability
Hello,
I need more information regarding the power consumption of the VOXL2 board so that I can try to extend the battery life that powers the board whenever possible.
How much power does the VOXL2 board consume in idle mode? Is there a way to reduce the energy consumption of the board by putting the QRB5165 in sleep mode and waiting for an external event to wake it up? Is there a detailed datasheet of the QRB5165 chip that I can look at?
Any info will be highly appreciated,
Thank you very much for your time
Can anyone help with this issue? This is very important for me as well. Thanks
@Matt-Turi thank you very much. Really appreciate your help 
@modaltb, @Matt-Turi,
can you guys share a timeline for the beta release of the system image that supports ToF on VOXL 2? It has been weeks now that I am checking the website every day but still can't see the release. Thanks a lot for your time
@modaltb, @Matt-Turi,
any news on the release of the ToF installation for VOXL2? Even a beta version with little instructions on how to install it will be great. Really hope to have this feature soon and thank you very much for your hard work.
Best,
Hi @Matt-Turi and thank you for your very quick reply.
I am definitely implementing this on the VOXL1 by following your links and thanks again for that.
Furthermore, do you know if such capability will be available for VOXL2? We are still waiting for the code instruction to install the tof sensors on the VOXL2. Do you know when that would be released?
Thanks
Hi,
I am very interested in your recent youtube video and wanted to know more about the hardware/software details.
1 - Which hardware platform are you using? Is that the Sentinel embedding the VOXL2? Are those results possible using the VOXL1?
2 - Which sensor are you using? Are you using the cameras on the VOXL to create a point cloud or a time of flight sensor as well? Would just a tof sensor be enough to create a map and navigate into it as you show in the video?
3 - Can you link me to any resources or detailed instructions that I can use to install all the software you run in this demo so that I can reproduce it in my office? In particular, if using a camera to generate the point cloud, which piece of code are you running to do that?
Thank you very much
As for the projects we are developing, we really need the ToF sensor to be working on the VOXL2. However, I read that the TOF sensor is not yet supported. Do you have an approximate timeline for when the TOF sensor would be supported?
Thanks
Hello,
I have a couple of questions regarding the RB5 platform:
1 - Is it possible to replace one of the MIPI ports on the RB5 with a time of flight (tof) sensor?
2 - Is it possible to configure the RB5 software to support the tof sensor and its configuration?
So far I was able to replace the stereo camera on the VOXL Flight module with a tof sensor and configure it correctly. Therefore, I was wondering if the steps to do that on the RB5 are the same or differ w.r.t. the VOXL Flight module.
Thank you very much for your help
Thanks for your reply Chad. My ROS-topic is in a standard format but I don't know how to visualize this topic on my laptop because the data is not sent from the voxl to my laptop. I can clearly run my ROS-topic on the voxl and see the data, but as soon as I try to do the same on my laptop, the topic is empty. It seems that the only ROS-topics data that can be visualized on the laptop are the ones that can be shown on the voxl-portal. Is there a way to transfer more ROS-topic data other than the one that can be visualized on the voxl-portal? I don't need to use the voxl-portal to visualize the data and rviz is just fine.
Thank you very much for your time and help
Thanks Chad for your quick reply. I just opened the voxl-portal in my browser and I can easily visualize the default topics related to cameras, point cloud, and the vox-mapper on map. However, I still can't see my custom topic.
How can I show my custom ros topic on the voxl-portal?
Thanks
Hello everyone,
by following the "Viewing the Data with ROS" section on "https://docs.modalai.com/voxl-tof-sensor-user-guide/", I am able to run "voxl_mpa_to_ros.launch" on the voxl and visualize several ros-topics on my laptop using rviz. In particular, I can easily visualize topics such as /tof_pc, /hires, /imu0 locally on my laptop.
As I am able to generate on the voxl another ros-topic such as /map, I would like to visualize it locally as well on my laptop for debugging purposes.
However, even if I can see the topic working on the voxl using "rostopic echo /map", I can only see the topic name on my laptop but as soon as I run "rostopic echo /map", no data is actually reported.
How can I send a topic from the voxl to my laptop using the wi-fi connection?
Thank you very much for your time,
Thanks a lot! I'll look into that. Thanks again
Hello,
As I power on my drone, the date reported from the voxl is Jan 1st, 1970. To update the date, the only way that I am aware of is to switch the voxl to station mode so that it gets an internet connection.
As I am controlling the drone by running QGC on my laptop, is there any automated way to send the laptop date to the voxl while always maintaining the voxl in softap mode and never switching to station mode?
Please let me know if you can recommend a way to update the date on the voxl by only using the laptop connected to the drone through the WiFi or by using QGC.
Thank you very much for your help, and please let me know if you need further information.
Best,
Francesco