Configuration of avoidance with teraranger tower with upper and bottom rangefinder

ArduCopter Copter 3.5
1

Hi guys,
I have Pixhawk 2.1 with Terraranger Tower, its working properly on avoidance function.
Now I need add sensors for upper and bottom avoidance.

Any idea?

Thanks for help.

Lada

2

I don’t think currently you can have this setup out of the box with ArduPilot. They way I would try to go about it is have the two sensors looking up and down on i2c, unfortunately currently you can only specify a single PRX_TYPE parameter (meaning you can have either i2c or serial at a time).

When I was testing i2c sensors for obstacle avoidance back in November i run into some problems: Lidar doesn't work when RNGFND_ORIENT set to Up (24), assuming they were resolved there are two ways I would go around this:

  1. Modify the firmware to add a new proximity type (TeraRanger Tower + i2c) (or to make it even more clean create PRX_TYPE_2)
  2. Add a companion computer that can collect data from all your sensor and send them as mavlink messages (PRX_TYPE MAVLink) (I never used proximity this way so I can’t tell how reliable it is)

In both cases you would quite likely need to modify the ArduCopter firmware.

Hope any of that helps!
Mat

3

Hi Mat
thanks for the answer, I expected this result.
I decided to choose to make a new type of PRX (Teraranger Tower + 2 TerabeeOne I2c) based on the expansion of “AP_Proximity_TeraRangerTower” by two TerabeeOne I2c sensors.
Modify other AP_Proximity related modules.
And I will test the new firmware on my octocopter (Pixhawk 2.1).
It’s good idea :slight_smile: ?
Lada

4

Hi Lada,

Sorry, I didn’t get a notification about your reply. Your idea sounds good to me (of course be careful when flight testing it and try it one module at a time). Please let me know how it works out!

Cheers,
Mateusz

5

Does it works ? Any idea ? I am also looking for the same but n solution. Please help me. I will be using teraranger evo 60m as a tower ( 8 sensors ) for front, back, left and right obstacle avoidance but I want to setup the other two evo 60m. One evo 60m for terrain following, height maintaining withbottom obstacle avoidance and another one for top obstacle avoidance. So in total 10 sensors. 8 in tower 60m evo set and other two for bottom and top respectively ? Any help would be appreciated.

6

Does it works ? Any idea ? I am also looking for the same but n solution. Please help me. I will be using teraranger evo 60m as a tower ( 8 sensors ) for front, back, left and right obstacle avoidance but I want to setup the other two evo 60m. One evo 60m for terrain following, height maintaining withbottom obstacle avoidance and another one for top obstacle avoidance. So in total 10 sensors. 8 in tower 60m evo set and other two for bottom and top respectively ? Any help would be appreciated .