Can I Use Raspberry Pi 4 Model B for Companion Computer?

APSync / Companion Computers
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1

http://ardupilot.org/dev/docs/raspberry-pi-via-mavlink.html This article based on Raspberry Pi 3B, for this reason can I use APSync images on RPi 4 ? Or Are there any problem for connect ?

Thank’s

2

I don’t think we’ve actually tested that just yet: I suspect the image won’t support Pi4 out of the box but feel free to try it out and let us know.

3

I haven’t buy yet. Firstly I want to know works correctly. When I buy and try, I write my experience.

4

Are there any updates on this? I plan on using the pixhawk as my flight controller and the Pi 4b as my companion computer.

Thanks

5

Hi, I am looking to use Ras-Pi Model 4B as a companion computer. Any updates on the testing status?

6

Hello there,

In the project I work on, we are using Raspberry Pi 4 Model B as companion computer to ArduCopter versions 3.9.6 and 3.9.12. It does work when configured according to the configuration. On RPi side, we have set up Raspbian Buster OS and ROSpberry Pi in order to utilize MAVROS and other ROS packages for autonomous flight.

However, I have a problem with ArduCopter version 4.0.0 for some reason. When I run MAVROS with 921600 baud rate on serial, after a non-deterministic while (this can be a few minutes or less than a minute) the connection between RPi and Pixhawk 4 is lost and MAVROS warns me by stating that HEARTBEAT timed out. ~15 seconds after the heartbeat warning, I start to get TX queue overflow error on only 3 messages, namely HEARTBEAT, SYSTEM_TIME and TIMESYNC, which is quite normal as the companion computer can’t detect some autopilot to take those messages at all. We thought that dropping to 3.9.x may solve this issue. It didn’t at all, but the frequency of occurrence of the problem is reduced significantly. Under normal circumstances, RPi as a companion computer sustains 921600 baud rate on serial communication, as well as ArduCopter.

Can it be that there might be some kind of OS system call on RPi that resets the serial baud rate to a value less than 921600 at an instance and that leads to heartbeat warnings? What might be the problem?

We checked the cables and they seem fine as there don’t seem to be short circuits. We updated the mavlink package (from 11/11/19 to 30/12/19), but that did not make a significant difference.

For my baud rate idea, I’ve tried to start the quads with no propellers and some software load with MAVROS and other ROS nodes. I experimented twice, one lasting ~30 minutes and the other ~110 minutes. Even though I saw occasions where connection was going to be lost, the connection between RPi and Pixhawk 4 was re-established pretty quickly. Currently, I could neither prove nor disprove my idea, so I will experiment this on a flight in a couple days and see what happens.

Thanks in advance…

Burak

7

Think i read something about the res of the hdmi screen effecting baud rates somewhere.
a internal clock timing circuit used for both I was informed.

maybe ??