Another roadblock! I decided to go straight to trying to run it in hardware as opposed to the simulator and I have been running into issues setting up the serial connection between the flight controller and VOXL. How do I specify the fcu_url on a serial port, specifically UART_J10 if I cannot talk to the ports with read and writes? I would not like to use udp and just use a serial connection but I'm confused about how to set up the fcu_url for a serial connection.

This solved the flashing issue, I thought i did this all as root but I didn't! Thank you!

The flashing process doesn't seem to really start. My guess is that the problem lies within the bootloader because our team was also having issues with updating the firmware both through and USB and when the process was done through USB, the upload.sh script was stalled on "waiting for the bootloader...", at which point I aborted the upload. My colleague @gus will be around at 4PM EST to discuss our issues; I have to attend to another project but he is just as informed on our issues as I am, if not more. You can reach him at gus@sicdrone.com. Thank you for being so responsive!

When attempting to flash the VOXL Flight, the VOXL would go into flashboot mode but it never got out of flashboot mode, even after several minutes. The ./install.sh script was stuck on <waiting for devices> as well. I attempted to flash without the Debug Add-on and with it as well (even though we had shell access to the VOXL) and both methods did not work. This was attempted both with the 2.5.2 and 3.1.0 images. Though we have access to this current image, it would be nice to be able to reflash the system image, especially as newer images come out. Any help on this would be appreciated, thanks!

Sounds easy enough, thanks for the quick reply!

Alright, my first roadblock! I was able to set up a docker image running ubuntu and I have installed voxl-cam-ros, snap_vio, and the dfs node and have built the catkin workspace with no problems seemingly. My problem comes with what to do next exactly: I could continue with the PX4 avoidance README and try SITL but I'm not sure about that because that involves installing PX4's firmware and running a gazebo simulation, which seems too cumbersome both in space and graphics for the VOXL to do. The second option would be to run in hardware. Part of the process of running the PX4 local planner requires specifying the camera serial number along with the company name before running "generate_launchfile.sh" which adds several parameters to launch a specific launch file for the camera specified. The second option seems like the more likely option but I'm not sure.

So my question is two-fold: Should I try to run this in SITL at all or just run it in hardware and if so, what parameters/launch files do I need to include so I could run with this in hardware? Do I even need to set up the node for the stereo camera in the same way it is done for the Realsense or Occipital cameras (For reference, I'm specifically referring to the Run on Hardware section of the PX4 avoidance repo).

Thanks for the help already! Hopefully, I won't have too many more issues that I'll need more insight on.

Thank you, I'll follow this and will let you know if I do it successfully or if there are any roadblocks in the way!

I have set up the collision prevention system using the documentation given. Still, I see that there is no documentation for obstacle avoidance in mission mode, particularly the local planner node PX4 created. I have been able to fly a drone with PX4 avoidance using the Jetson TX2, but I do not know how to set this up on the voxl and get all the necessary dependencies installed for the local planner to function. For example, I wasn't able to install the pcl-ros package on the voxl. Is this possible to implement the mission mode version of obstacle avoidance using the voxl as the companion computer and the stereo pair, tracking camera, and the flight core? If not, are there some workarounds or different nodes I could use for the stereo camera pair, at least? I'd still like to use the algorithm implemented in the PX4 avoidance repo if possible.