2023-10-17 Ardupilot Lidar q/a

Owned by Aaditya Chaudhary
Last updated: 2023-10-18
2 min read

  • the lidar that is supported by ardu is very expensive and is not as good for outdoor use

  • we need to find and source a lidar that is good for atleast 12 m and works well outside, with atleast 360 degrees of coverage

  • write a driver for this to work with ardu

  • the current outdoor, ardu supported lidar costs 600 dollars

  • in the future wed like cheaper options so we can afford to buy and use multiple (can only buy 1 lidar for now)

  • ardupilot has a list of supported lidars, we want to just add support for more models

  • tasks

    • source a lidar and give details to anni so he can coordinate with other subteams [ Nov 3rd ]

      • design matrix

        • we list the lidars

        • we find the data

        • other subteams can make their own weights and find their top 3 choices based on that

        • we all discuss

      • show range, outdoor use, weight, current draw,

      • ideally around 200 CAD (but less is better)

      • max wed consider 600 CAD (this is the current cost that we pay)

      • HAS to have good outdoor capabilities

      • absolute min is 4-6, ideal is 12m, no real upper limit

    • write a driver for it [End of the term]

      • make a fresh stm project with a nucleo, get a POC working

      • integrate into the ardu codebase

        • big codebase, not as much support, will take time to understand

    • test the driver [End of the term]

    • PR into ardu main [ feb-marchish ]

      • flight tests needed [april]

        • will buy some nucleo stm32 H7 for this, or we can use stm32f405

  • if this is done before comp, there is a non zero chance it flies if the main lidar has issues or gets broken etc

New priorities

  1. Gemini

  2. Ardupilot Lidar support

  3. CAN sensor board & RTK support

  4. other random projects?

    1. lighting control

    2. OSD

    3. support for individual sensors