Leddar One optical range-finder support coming to ArduPilot?

Posted by Tony Kenward on February 26, 2016 at 5:45pm

Now that the LidarLite is off the market (until Garmin brings it back), there are not many options for accurate altitude sensing.

I have a optical flow sensor that I would like to mount up, but I don't want to spend $250 for the Lightware SF11, or $230+ for a TeraRanger.

So, my question to any developers:  will ArduPilot be adding firmware support for this sensor?

The specs and the price seem very promising:

   http://leddartech.com/en/leddar-sensor-products/leddarone

   http://www.robotshop.com/en/leddartech-leddar-one-sensing-module-rs-485.html

  Leddar One single element sensor module

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Replies

  • Anton Horpynich July 26, 2016 at 9:02am

    Just the main sources I've used, but another files should be edited to make it work, developers have to understand it.

    AP_RangeFinder_Leddar.cpp

    AP_RangeFinder_Leddar.h

    https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3702273494?profile=original
  • Anton Horpynich July 26, 2016 at 8:58am

    Hello friends!

    After unsuccessful testing of Terrarager One sensors outdoors (they were bought when only model A were available) and get tired of negotiantions about replacing them with model B which are claim to be more stable outdoors I've decided to order Leddar One (another ONE )))) sensor to try it. I've ordered UART variant.

    Faced with the same problem as the other users I've added it to the list of rangefinders in the latest version (beta) of Ardupilot and compiled for Pixhawk and Pixracer controllers. During development i've found serial 5 port couldn't be used for pixawk board, maybe because mine is clone. And this fact took me additional day of debugging )

    At the moment I didn't tried the perfomance outdoors, but found it working fine indoors without any additional power supply, special cables (fortunatelly it works require 3.3V as pixhawk/racer boards), capacitors, etc. You just need to connect it to serial port 4 including power lines, upload the corresponding firmware and setup the following parameters:

    SERIAL4_BAUD -> 115

    SERIAL4_PROTOCOL -> 9 (Lidar)

    RNGFND_TYPE -> 11

    RNGFND_MIN_CM -> 20

    RNGFND_MAX_CM -> 1400

    The connection from Lidar to Pixhawk:

    1 -> Gnd

    3 -> +5V

    4 -> Serial4 TX

    5 -> Serial4 RX

    Firmware variants:

    arducopter-v2.px4 - for pixhawk board

    ArduCopter-v4.px4 - for pixracer board

    Quadrocopter vaiants only compiled at the moment. But I think it's enough for testing. Waiting for feedback.

    P.S. Sources are available on the request. Sorry, I haven't time to go deep in details of Github versioning yet...

    arducopter-v2.px4

    ArduCopter-v4.px4

    https://storage.ning.com/topology/rest/1.0/file/get/3702273485?profile=original
  • Developer
    Randy February 26, 2016 at 10:47pm

    I suspect it's not very difficult to add support but it depends a bit on the interface (analog, spi, i2c) it's using and I can't immediately see what type it is.  If someone wants to send me one I can probably add support or better yet, if this company has c++ developers (or there's some other c++ developer who wants to take on the task) I could give them advice on how to do it.  I can be PM'd here on diydrones of course or emailed at rmackay9 at yahoo.com.

    • Darius Jack > Randy February 27, 2016 at 2:41pm

      @Tony,

      @Mario,

      don't be childlish.

      $25 video camera smartphone comes exactly with 3D scanner real-time functionality (application) to extract Z-axis depth in realtime, generating 3D landscape objects in real-time, acting exactly as real-time range-finder, optical flow speed meter.

      $25 video camera comes with quad CPU, 2x GPU is really fast, WiFi, Bluetooth, microUSB, DHMI connectivity by defauklt.

      LCD display, p[lastic cover can be removed to make it super lightweight.

      BTW

      Sponsored marketing doesn't work at all (60 views only).

      Just denote your blog post as sponsored marketing, likes only.

    • Maxime C > Darius Jack March 3, 2016 at 9:57am

      Could you talk us through those photogrammetric point cloud definitions?

  • Darius Jack February 26, 2016 at 5:58pm

    "

    Range 0m to 15m on natural targets (up to 40m on reflective targets)

    "

    What about Android smartphone optical range finder application ?

    3D smartphone camera scanner works fine, extracting Z-depth from video, if you move your smartphone.

    Virtually no range limit.

This reply was deleted.