I am trying to do precision landing with IR-Lock. I am considering to use the TFMINI LiDAR as the ranging sensor since it is not so expensive, but I was wondering if anyone has had success with the TFMINI together with IR-Lock before I buy it?
Yes it should work but you will be limited to 6Meters outdoor.
Thanks for the reply.
Yes, but I guess 6m should be enough for IR-Lock to get the drone in position?
Most uses cases are from 20 Meters , you wil be short sighted
I don’t even fly that high, the highest I am doing at the moment is about 15m. Do I need to be higher than 20m for IR-lock to work properly? What is the minimum height from the landing beacon that IR-Lock needs to land, even if I make the landing speed very low? The GPS brings the drone very close to the landing beacon before the landing starts, so the IR-Lock cam does not need to have a very wide field of view to search for the beacon.
I am now trying to setup the TF mini. I was able to connect it to the TF Gui and get the distance measurement showing on the graph. I then sent the command 42 57 02 00 00 00 04 06 with the Gui to change it to PIX mode and the graph stops when the command is sent. So far this is correct. If I then Click the Pix Mode check box (while TF mini is in Pix Mode), there is still no data coming through on the graph on the Gui. Is the Gui graph supposed to update when in Pix Mode? Because if I connect a serial terminal I can see the distance updating as a text value, so the TF mini is correctly configured for Pix Mode but the Gui does not work in Pix Mode. The reason I am asking is because even though it is working with the serial terminal, it still does not work when I connect it to PixHawk. I get a Bad LiDAR Error and the sonar range is 0. I have set the parameters and connected the TF mini on Serial 4, the same way as the instructions on the ardupilot website on rangefinders (http://ardupilot.org/copter/docs/common-lightware-lw20-lidar.html#serial-connection). Do I need to set it up differently? Does the TF mini need to be updated with new firmware as suggested in some other posts? Also, why does it only give 1 decimal in the serial terminal, is it not supposed to be 2 decimals?
You have to set
the rangefinder to lightware = Type 8
http://ardupilot.org/copter/docs/parameters.html#rngfnd-parameters
Serial protocol to 9 = Lidar
Serial speed to 115200
http://ardupilot.org/copter/docs/parameters.html#serial2-protocol-telemetry-2-protocol-selection
Hi ppoirier
Yes I have done exactly that. I used the parameters as instructed on the Ardupilot Rangefinder landing page. If you go to the link that I posted above you will see that it has exactly those parameters. That is why I was wondering if there is something else wrong such as TF mini firmware?
Ok if you get just one digit, you need to upgrade firmware.
Please contact @Siya from benewake she will send you the procedure
Hi, Alla. You are welcome to send email to support@benewake.com for new firmware and upgrade instructions for TFmini LiDAR. Thanks.