VOXL 2 WiFi Setup

Overview

This page serves as a WiFi setup guide for all devices based the VOXL 2 and VOXL 2 mini autopilots including the Starling and Sentinel development drones.

These models keep the core size and weight low by minimizing component counts and taking techniques like moving modems and USB Ports to add-on cards. Below are options for getting them on a network.

WiFi Adapters

For desktop development, this is an ideal low-latency option.

Since VOXL 2 does not have USB onboard, we’ll need to find a way to add USB ports. There are some options:

Image	Description	Link
	M0078 VOXL / VOXL 2 USB Expansion Board with Fastboot v2 Shown with MCBL-00009 and AWUS036ACS	Buy Datasheet
	M0090 VOXL 2 5g Modem Carrier Shown with MCBL-00009 and AWUS036ACS	Buy Datasheet
	M0125 VOXL 2 USB3.0 / UART Expansion Adapter Shown with MCBL-00022 and AWUS036ACS	Buy Datasheet
	M0141 VOXL 2 USB-A Breakout Board + UART/I2C/SPI Shown here with AWUS036EACS	Datasheet
	MCBL-00022 Shown here with AWUS036EACS	Buy Datasheet

The purpose of the USB port is to plug in a USB WiFi adapter. For a well-tested, plug and play solution: VOXL 2 WiFi Add-On Kit

Other Supported and Tested USB WiFi Dongles:

If you prefer to use ethernet instead of a wireless setup, any USB to ethernet adapter, like Apple’s A1277, should work.

Configuration and Connection

All devices support two WiFi modes, Station and SoftAP. Station Mode refers to the device being configured into a typical ‘WiFi client’ on a wireless network like your phone or laptop. Software enabled Access Point Mode (SoftAP) configures the device to generate its own hotspot so that other WiFi devices can connect to it. This is useful if you are in the field away from your home or office WiFi network. On VOXL 2, switching between the two modes can be done at any time using the voxl-wifi wizard.

Configure and Connect in Station Mode

To configure the VOXL 2 device into Station Mode, run the following command from the host machine:

me@mylaptop:~$ adb shell voxl-wifi
Wifi is currently set up as follows:
	Current mode: station
	Current ssid: Jarvis

Station mode is for connecting to a normal wifi network.
In softap mode, the VOXL will broadcast its own wifi network.
Factory mode will set up softap with the following unique SSID:
	VOXL-00:c0:ca:ae:23:77

Please enter the intended Wi-Fi operation
Options:
	1) do nothing and quit
	2) station
	3) softap
	4) factory

Type 2 and press Enter to select station mode. From here, you will then be prompted for the SSID and Password of your network.

To finish the setup, reboot the device:

me@mylaptop:~$ adb reboot && adb wait-for-device

Once the device has rebooted, you can use the command voxl-my-ip to get the IP address of your device on the network like:

me@mylaptop:~$ adb shell voxl-my-ip
wlan0: 192.168.1.217

And so in this case the IP address is 192.168.1.217. Now you can connect via ssh as:

me@mylaptop:~$ ssh root@192.168.1.217

Where here the IP address following root@ should correspond to the above output from the above command. The password to connect will be oelinux123.

Note: It’s not currently possible to assign a static IP, only DHCP is supported. If you need a static IP on your own wifi network it’s best to configure that in your router’s software.

Configure and Connect in SoftAP Mode

By default, the unit ships configured in SoftAP mode with an SSID of VOXL-XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX with password 1234567890 (where XX:XX:XX:XX:XX:XX is the unit’s MAC address. To configure the VOXL into Access Point Mode with your desired SSID, use the voxl-wifi wizard:

me@mylaptop:~$ adb shell voxl-wifi
Wifi is currently set up as follows:
	Current mode: station
	Current ssid: Jarvis

Station mode is for connecting to a normal wifi network.
In softap mode, the VOXL will broadcast its own wifi network.
Factory mode will set up softap with the following unique SSID:
	VOXL-00:c0:ca:ae:23:77

Please enter the intended Wi-Fi operation
Options:
	1) do nothing and quit
	2) station
	3) softap
	4) factory

Here you can either press 4 to load the device into SoftAP mode with default factory settings or you can press 3 to use a custom SSID and password.

Now on your host machine you should connect to the SSID above using either the default password 1234567890 or the custom password you set. The VOXL will assign itself the IP 192.168.8.1 and so then from your host machine you can use ssh to connect as:

me@mylaptop:~$ ssh root@192.168.8.1

Your device will be assigned an IP with DHCP in the 192.168.8.X subnet, usually 192.168.8.60, but not always.

Appendix:

Configure Hostname for Soft AP Mode (Optional)

It may be desired to have a dedicated hostname for your target instead of using an IP. This thread describes how to enable.

Known Error Running ROS Through SSH

If you try to use ROS commands while SSH’d to VOXL and see errors such as this:

load_parameters: unable to set parameters (last param was [/rosdistro=indigo
]): <Fault 1: "<class 'xml.parsers.expat.ExpatError'>:not well-formed (invalid token): line 13, column 15">

The cause is a known issue with the GNOME Terminal, the default terminal emulator of Ubuntu. The solution is to use another terminal emulator such as xterm or Konsole instead of GNOME Terminal.

More information here: https://gitlab.com/voxl-public/documentation/issues/4

Next: Inspect and Configure SKU