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Connecting BeagleBoard-xM and ArduPilot Mega 2560 (APM1)

Posted by Noah Wardrip on February 16, 2012 at 11:23pm

I would like to connect a BeagleBoard-xM to the ArduPilotMega 2560.  Connecting over serial appears to me to be the easiest way.  I see that in the Arducopter code, Serial2 is not being used.  However, tonight I noticed this comment in the optical flow code: "External ADNS3080 OpticalFlow is connected via Serial port 2 (in SPI mode)."  I would also like to use optical flow, in addition to the BeagleBoard-xM.  Can anyone confirm this comment is true?

If this is the case, how do you suggest that I connect the BeagleBoard-xM and ArduPilotMega so that they can exchange data?

Thanks!

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Replies

  • Abdul-Rauf Mujahid September 30, 2013 at 11:30am

    I am building a quadrotor with object tracking feature. all image processing will be done on beaglebone black. can anyone guide me how can i connect beaglebone black with ardupilot mega 2.5 so that beaglebone can give movement commands to ardupilot? also is it posible?

  • Noah Wardrip May 10, 2013 at 11:19pm

    Hi Guys,

    Sorry I have been AWOL.  I got the connection to work just fine using MAVLink between an app running on the BeagleBoard/PandaBoard and the APM board.  Please see section 6 in my attached report for more details.

    paper.pdf

  • Ufuk Irmak April 19, 2013 at 1:00am

    Hi Noah;

    I want to do same thing. So, if you could achieve this please give some information about it.

    Thanks

  • Jonathan Anderson March 31, 2013 at 10:07pm

    +1

  • Manu Sharma January 9, 2013 at 2:44pm

    Noah: were you able to connect beaglebone to ardupilot?

    I can connect it through UART0 from APM to beaglebone through pin21/22 on beaglebone... but the problem is it doesnt works if i unplug the USB and power the board through battery.

    would love to know how you solved the issue.

  • Kevin Kanzelmeyer November 15, 2012 at 11:41am

    Hi Noah - were you ever able to exchange data between your BeagleBoard and the APM? I'm a student at Georgia Tech and our group is trying to do something similar. Do you have any suggestions? 

  • Ryan VanderHeiden February 18, 2012 at 11:10am

    Serial 2 cannot be used without changes to the arducopter code. It is put into spi mode in order to communicate with the analog-digital converter on the IMU shield, the data-flash chip, and the optical flow sensor if available. You could connect another device to this port by using a spare digital out on the apm as a chip select line so you only talk to one device at a time.

    Students at where I go to college did a similar project with the original BeagleBoard. They just connected it using the usb port on the shield (Serial). It worked fine for them.

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