They're getting smaller, lighter and now also cheaper. The SF10/C, short range (0-25m) laser altimeter for multicopters and small UAVs is now in production. Suitable for low level hovering control, auto landing and collision avoidance, this new member of the no-compromises SF10 family has all the bells and whistles including serial, I2C and analog outputs along with a micro-USB configuration port. Suitable for operation indoors and outside in bright sunlight. Special introductory offer at $325.00.
Comments
I guess the quiet response is a negative answer to your question Francis. I am only aware of Tridge's tests made with our SF02/F and an early version of the LidarLite. The SF10/C has similar operational performance to the SF02/F at short range, but with the enhancements of lower weight and faster measuring speed mentioned earlier in the blog.
Has someone already compared it to Lidar Lite in a real world application?
Yes Hein, the SF02/F is a little cheaper and has more range, however the SF10/C is half the size, almost three times faster and half the weight making it ideal for payload sensitive applications like 'copters.
One thing that we have found at all price levels is that performance must be uncompromising in order to deal with difficult outdoor conditions. So even this short range SF10/C has full optical filtering to cut out sunlight, a super sensitive APD detector and a pulsed laser light source. Real-world performance equates to a high SNR. :)
Hello there Hugues. Sorry, we use our own flavour of autopilot with own tailored software, not APM. But as Andrew mentioned, he has done this for APM style systems, albeit with the SF02 - However, the SF10 behaves the same, although with increased range, performance and more interface options. Nice products.
Andrew, from me as well, well done! Be careful of those CEP's though - you might have APM/Pixhawk banned again!!
The Nampilot....
Well done at the OBC Tridge! Awesome work from you and the team.
We used the SF/02 for our OBC competition plane. Worked very nicely! We used it as an analog rangefinder (just set RNGFND_TYPE=1), the I2C available on this new version would be a nice improvement.
We don't yet have support for the I2C protocol in the SF10 series of rangefinders in ardupilot, but hopefully someone will contribute a patch for that soon.
Cheers, Tridge
Hi Joe,
What code did you modified in APM plane to use this? Or is it plug n play?
I can attest to the performance of this amazing product! A standard item in our UAV's now, as well as in the UAV's manufactured and sold by the Paramount Group in South Africa. Really amazing product
The Nampilot