Raspberry pi 5 / 4G LTE

Hardware Companion Computers
1

Hi guys,

I have recently discovered companion computers. So since theyre so cheap i went ahead and got one. Im planning on doing some experiments with a 4G modem HAT and i was curious what OS you guys might recommend. As of right now, i see that ardupilot supports Ubuntu and Raspberry OS?

Just thought to ask.

The idea is to stream MAVlink and HD video. FYI i conned tmobile into hooking me up with a simcard that has 10gb of data for 15$/month… not sure how i pulled it off but i should have plenty of data to play with. Any advice or guidance is greatly appreciated

Thanks

2

There’s plenty of people doing this, so it’s fairly well supported.

To clarify, you’ll still need a separate flight controller and connect it to the RPi. There’s documentation over at Companion Computers — Dev documentation

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3

Yessir! Ive been using the cube orange but will eventually get the cube red? Thoughts?

So is there any advantages/ disadvantages to using ubuntu vs raspberry OS? I haven’t found people that have suggested either or.

4

I am not a representative of this company but a user. you may want to take a look, to share. I have the 4G/LTE Cellular Modem Kit for Raspberry Pi.

If you are looking for ROS 2 tier 1 support with Ardupilot, then Ubuntu 22.04 64-bit LTS is better. Some Pi camera libraries are slow to port to Ubuntu, that is the tradeoff. Tier 1 supported by ROS 2.

5

Nice, i was hoping to hear Ubuntu would be better since I already have some limited experience with that OS. I actually have thale 4G LTE modem from sixfab :heavy_check_mark: . Going to flash the OS and then configure the 4G modem in the next day or so.

Then i guess would it be dumb to have a USB connection to the cube or should i go through the telem ports? With the cube red , i could use the network connection w a switch so to connect cameras.

Ive got some experience with the rfd900 models and was wondering if i can have that a raspberry pi and the herelink all feeding jnto and out of a cube or would that be complete overkill?

So many possibilities :relieved:

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I use a 921600 bps UART (serial) connection. it is possible to configure to higher baud rate. 9:00.

Is it a same question asked by another user?

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Yes after doing some research, I eneed up going with the latest Raspberry pi OS. So far so good. If i need to switch OS later no big deal.

Ive got the 4G HAT from sixfab connected and configured. Im seeing 2-4mb/sec download and 15mb/sec upload which should work great for streaming video to Mission Planner as well as mavink.

I suppose I could use the GPS2 port configured to UART and have 3 separate MAVLINK streams ?

1 to Herelink / Telem1
2 to RFD900 / Telem2
3 to Raspberry Pi / GPS2 or USB??

My next step is to maintain an IP address for the Raspberry pi right? So that i can connect through mission planner on the Ground Station.

Is that what MAVProxy or MAVRouter is for?

And then, i would need to setup some kind of RTSP stream for the CSI TO HDMI bridge.

Just kind of thinking out loud.

Thanks

8

CubeOrange carrier board maximum uart ports.

You can try to sign up limit free zerotier account, with NetBIOS (I think) configure, access by hostname (maybe can). UDPCI.

Network can be easy, can be complicated.

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Gotcha, so i guess the reason ive been leaning towards usb is because im a little unsure if i can use the GPIO pins since the 4G hat might be using them. I noticed power is definitely being used because when I unplug the USB to the 4G HAT it remains powered on but the network connectivity drops.

Haven’t been able to find much documentation on the Telit module. Im wondering if I can still use the pins id need to do a serial UART connection to the cube.

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consider stacking it with Pi-Connect Lite for power draw power from 7-30v.

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Seems like a nice solution. I would need to read the documentation but are you saying that i can stack this ontop of the 4G HAT ? I could use the other GPIO extension that came with the sixfab kit and put this one on top??

13

Never mind. That is a genious solution. You can indeed double stack HATs and specifically the sixfab 4G hat

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Yes, you found it.

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Nice. Is that similar to what I am doing?
Just ordered the Pi Connect Lite V2. :tada:

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back then only 1.x vhardware version. I have the 1.x version.
check it out and compare the differences.

honestly, I still do not favor the idea of cutting copper track idea, prefer the mini jumper selection. if you prefer 2.x, buy 2.1 version.

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@stephendade

Ive kind of come the conclusion that Rpanion on the latest Raspberry OS (Raspberry PI 5) in combination with Zerotier would be my best fit. Ive ordered the Pi-Connect Lite V2 but until then i figured id try to get things rolling. Followed the instructions to install from source from the rpanion website. The first few commands seemed to work fine but i did get a few errors on some of the other commands.

I was wondering if i can get some help. Im still a little in the dark about what software I need. My main goal is to stream video and im under the impression that Rpanion Server is probably the best option. Unless someone can change my mind.

I do have the 4G hat configured and working and its getting 3-4mb down and 10-15 upload. So that part of the equation is working.

19

Hi

I have read the post and regarding the drone control over internet with video stream me and my team have created a platform iDronam that eliminates the need of VPN and setting up the custom video server. I am looking for beta users for testing.
Specifications:
→ Stream Video
→ Stream Mavlink (in this features you can stream mavlink packets to any GCS over internet still in development but will be ready by next week)
→ cloud control dashboard
→ no need to wait for VPN initial setup
→ drone will be online in 3 seconds after you got the internet

For beta users every features is available for testing

Looking fwd for a good response

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Well id be interested but the plane I want to put it in is not a going to be a test subject as it has quite a bit of expensive equipment. I have a smaller plane that might be a candidate tho.