Getting started with BeagleBone Black and Ardupilot

[Elias Strandell Erstorp]

Hello, 

I have now run DUNE for a while and walked through the majority of your tutorials. I am by no means a professional programmer or software engineer, but a Naval Architecture student trying to evaluate the possibilities of using the toolchain for controlling a AUV that is currently using an Ardupilot with homemade code for navigation. I would like to implement the LSTS toolchain in a system as displayed in the attached figure. From what I’ve understood this system is very similar to what you are already using in some AUVs at LSTS. So, to get to the point. I would be very happy if you could supply me with some information on your systems, such as the interface between BeagleBone and Ardupilot, what firmware is being used on the Ardupilot and what telemetry you are using. Is DUNE bound to interact with Ardupilot using the MAVlink protocol? Is there any available documentation on your similar systems, or more thorough guides on the toolchain (specially DUNE)? 

Thank you very much for your help, I'll try to be more specific with my questions as I get started.

I hope I’m not disturbing you too much in your work… :)

Best Regards,

Elias Strandell Erstorp

[João Fortuna]

Hi Elias,

I guess you are from KTH, since what you are describing sounds familiar. I discussed this with Aron when he was visiting Porto last year.

We have used Ardupilot with DUNE only for UAVs, not AUVs.

The drawing you sent shows exactly what we are doing now (on UAVs).

The firmware on Ardupilot (or the newer Pixhawk) is the one provided by diydrones/3DRobotics, and telemetry/commands are exchanged in MAVLink. If your custom firmware also uses MAVLink, then you will probably just need to do some minor changes to the task in src/Control/UAV/Ardupilot, or you can get some "inspiration" from it.

Hope this answers most of your questions!

Cheers,

João Fortuna

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "LSTS Toolchain" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to lsts-toolchai...@googlegroups.com.
Visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/lsts-toolchain.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/lsts-toolchain/a6384a88-fd23-4fb0-a314-2d2c3fa26598%40googlegroups.com.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.

[Elias Strandell Erstorp]

Thank you! 

I strongly doubt that MAVlink is being used in our AUV, but I'll see. 

Yes I am indeed from KTH. I wrote a few lines about me when applying for the group :)

What about the physical connection between BBB and APM, I2C/SPI/USB? 

What wireless device are you using for BBB?

When I ran the x8-00.ini on BBB, DUNE was able to find Neptus (with the x8-00 console active). I was a bit surprised

since I didn't change the host-address in the vehicle-confs. Was it "pure luck" or are there some intelligent feature that

is scanning for nodes?

Again, thanks!

Elias Strandell

[João Fortuna]

Hi,

the connection we use is serial, to the telemetry port of the Ardupilot. Since BBB uses TTL3.3V and APM uses TTL5V you will need a logic level converter, such as this one: https://www.sparkfun.com/products/12009

The wireless device is a generic WiFi router shared by all the ethernet enabled equipment onboard, since everything is connected to an ethernet switch.

About DUNE showing up in Neptus, both of them announce their existence to the network, so as long as they are "reachable" they will connect. The IP in that file you mention is not used to set up this connection.

Cheers,

João

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/lsts-toolchain/8cb67f62-e0e6-4352-9fb6-c27321f3ff16%40googlegroups.com.

[Elias Strandell Erstorp]

That helps a lot!

Lucky I got one of those level shifters at home.

MAVlink isn't used in our AUV, only simple commands and information are being transmitted. 

So either we turn to MAVlink or we need to write DUNE tasks to transform IMC messages into

messages that our autopilot can understand (and create IMC messages from the information it

sends). I guess I will need to look into MAVlink.

Cheers,

Elias