VOXL ToF Sensor User Guide

Table of contents

1. Requirements
2. Hardware
3. Connect to VOXL
   1. Over ADB
   2. Over Wifi
4. Configure Cameras on VOXL
5. Viewing the Data with voxl-portal
6. Viewing the Data with ROS
   1. Configure ROS on voxl
   2. Configure ROS On Desktop
   3. Launch Node on VOXL
   4. Launch RViz on Desktop

Requirements

• VOXL or VOXL-Flight with VOXL System Image 3.2.0 or newer
• VOXL ToF Sensor (available here)
• If trying to visualize with ROS:
  • Linux with Rviz
  • Setup ROS on Host PC
  • Setup ROS on VOXL

Hardware

• Ensure VOXL/VOXL-Flight is powered off
• Connect to VOXL/VOXL-Flight connector J3 as shown (or J2 if using concurrently with stereo cameras)

Connect to VOXL

Over ADB

adb shell

Over Wifi

• Setup and connect VOXL/VOXL-Flight
• SSH onto the target:
  • VOXL IP will be 192.168.8.1 if in softap mode
  • If in station mode, you will have to run ifconfig on voxl to see what IP your network has assigned the voxl

ssh root@IP-ADDR-OF-VOXL
oelinux123

Configure Cameras on VOXL

On VOXL:

• Ensure the voxl is set up by running the following commands on voxl:

voxl-configure-cameras

• Select the option that best fits your setup

• Restart the camera server

  systemctl restart voxl-camera-server
  

Viewing the Data with voxl-portal

Ensure that voxl-camera-server and voxl-portal are running with:

voxl-inspect-services

If either are not, start them with

systemctl start voxl-camera-server

or

systemctl start voxl-portal

Once they’re both running, open a web browser on a device connected to the same network as the drone, type in the drone’s IP, click on the camera dropdown, and select one of the tof images to be shown a page like this:

voxl-portal does not currently support viewing the 3d pointcloud, but this is in the works and should be available in the coming weeks!

Viewing the Data with ROS

Configure ROS on voxl

On VOXL:

# view network information
ifconfig

• This will give you the IP address of the VOXL, configure ROS by modifying the /home/root/my_ros_env.sh file:

vi /home/root/my_ros_env.sh
exec bash

Configure ROS On Desktop

On Linux desktop:

• Find IP address

# view network information
ifconfig

• Configure ROS environment variables, where the ROS_MASTER_URI is what you saw on the VOXL

export ROS_IP=IP-ADDR-OF-PC
export ROS_MASTER_URI=http://AAA.BBB.CCC.DDD:XYZUV/

• source variables, where xxxxxx is the ROS version you have installed

source /opt/ros/xxxxx/setup.bash

Launch Node on VOXL

roslaunch /opt/ros/indigo/share/voxl_mpa_to_ros/launch/voxl_mpa_to_ros.launch

Launch RViz on Desktop

• On the host computer, run RViz

rviz

• On the leftmost column click on the “Add” button
• In the pop-up options click on “Image”
• Change Display Name to “IR-Image”
• In the left column under “IR-Image” tab select type in Image Topic as the TOF IR Image
• Click on the “Add” button again
• In the pop-up options click on “Image”
• Change Display Name to “Depth-Image”
• In the left column under “Depth-Image” tab select type in Image Topic as the TOF Depth Image
• “Add” PointCloud2 with TOF pointcloud topic