Lidar has arrived and I'm getting ready to mount it on my DiscoPro. My goal is to enable high speed terrain following at a fixed altitude, so I want the Lidar to look ahead and tell the Pixhawk to raise the Disco before I scream into that hill.
1 - I plan to mount the sensor down and angled forward at 45 degrees. (I'll account for the altitude disparity when I program missions - ie 15 meters will actually be 10 meters, etc.)
Is the Lidar going to be able to get accurate reflections at 45 degrees?
2- How about over rough water? Or smooth water? (If the signal caroms off into the clouds 45 degrees ahead, I'll report back about how well it works underwater...)
3 - Where should I mount this bad boy? According to this discussion:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/drones-discuss/VpQe2t4juk4
I need to keep the Lidar 20cm away from my GPS in order to avoid interference. A DiscoPro is not very big. Under the FPV camera is 20 cm from the Neo8 GPS, but the Lidar will be subjected to tall grass when landing, even with landing gear. Over the FPV camera is safer for the Lidar but only 15cm from the GPS. Out on an arm near a motor provides separation from the GPS, but then I'm near an ESC and their electronics may mess with each other; and I'll block some prop flow.
Thanks for helpful input.
Replies
I think that angling the sensor 45 degrees, as long as the surface isn't reflective. But the reflectivity problem would probably also be a problem with a vertical alignment. I have no idea how well it will work on water either.
Now, as to the whole idea of angling the sensor to look ahead 45°, I really don't know how well that will work out. It might work. But it would be better to actually change the algorithm to work properly in this scenario.
And how much it blocks the prop stream v