VOXL2 visual odometry / obstacle avoidance compatibility (VIO/VOA)

ArduCopter
1

Is it really not possible to utilize VOXL2’s visual odometry (VIO) or obstacle avoidance (VOA) capabilities with ArduCopter?

I saw in the documentation that the original VOXL’s VIO works with ArduCopter, but not VOXL2’s. I wonder why that is the case. Is the VOXL2 not sending the same MAVLink odometry packets that ArduCopter expects?

VOA is a bit more unclear to me. Does even the original VOXL / VOXL Cam’s VOA solution not work with ArduCopter?

I’m fine with digging into this deeper to try and hack somethings together if needed, but don’t want to waste too much time on it if it’s a lost cause.

Any additional information/clarity is helpful. Thank you!

Edit: I got a reply from a ModalAI Dev in their forum and he said the VOXL SDK is the same between VOXL1 and 2, so VIO should at the very least be doable. Still unsure about VOA but I’ll give it a try.

1 Like
2

Maybe nobody tested the V2.

If you want VOA you will need to implement appropriate algorithm on VOXL and send either MavLink distance sensor messages or provide path planning service through appropriate MavLink microservice.

3

On ModalAi site, it seems that they are still working on the new SDK
VOXL SDK Feature Guides VOA
The SDK 1.0 version of this page is still being worked on, the SDK 0.9 page can be found here and may be helpful.

Looking at SDK 0.9 it seems it is outputting Mavlink Obstacle_Distance message that can be consumed by ArduPilot Proximity controller. Maybe there are some subtilities on how the message is handled but it should workout.