Questions about connecting sensors

[rkoripalli]

Hi everyone,
I'm looking to use some sensors to fly my solo indoors, and have some questions about how to connect all of them.

Here's what I'm looking at:
PX4FLOW: PX4FLOW Developer Guide - Pixhawk Flight Controller Hardware Project
LIDAR-Lite v3: LIDAR-Lite v3 | Garmin
Scanse sweep: Scanse | Meet Sweep. An Affordable Scanning LiDAR for Everyone.

I want to use the PX4FLOW for position hold, LIDAR-Lite for altitude hold and sweep for collision avoidance.
My plan is to use the accessory port breakout board using UART for sweep and I2C for the PX4FLOW and LIDAR-Lite. Will there be any problems connecting both PX4FLOW and LIDAR-Lite to the I2C? I'm planning to do the modification here to extend I2C into the accessory bay then connect an I2C splitter and then connect both from there. Just want to see if there are any flaws in my plan before I go out and buy all the sensors.

 

[pyrate]

Flow was working on solo until they retrograded to a base of arducopter that no longer supported it
from what I have read

 

[pious_greek]

Hi everyone,
I'm looking to use some sensors to fly my solo indoors, and have some questions about how to connect all of them.

Here's what I'm looking at:
PX4FLOW: PX4FLOW Developer Guide - Pixhawk Flight Controller Hardware Project
LIDAR-Lite v3: LIDAR-Lite v3 | Garmin
Scanse sweep: Scanse | Meet Sweep. An Affordable Scanning LiDAR for Everyone.

I want to use the PX4FLOW for position hold, LIDAR-Lite for altitude hold and sweep for collision avoidance.
My plan is to use the accessory port breakout board using UART for sweep and I2C for the PX4FLOW and LIDAR-Lite. Will there be any problems connecting both PX4FLOW and LIDAR-Lite to the I2C? I'm planning to do the modification here to extend I2C into the accessory bay then connect an I2C splitter and then connect both from there. Just want to see if there are any flaws in my plan before I go out and buy all the sensors.

I'm not familiar with those sensors, but in theory the I2C protocol allows up to 127 unique addresses, and I think that I had previously read that the solo has two I2C buses. The smart battery and the compass use two of the addresses. My understanding is that as long as no two sensors share the same address, this would work, but at any given time, the solo can only communicate with one of the sensors (since they all share the same lines, they cant all speak at the same time).

I would think the bigger issue would be how the software is modified to use and react to the different sensor data... If you go down this road, please share what you learn.

 

[rkoripalli]

Flow was working on solo until they retrograded to a base of arducopter that no longer supported it
from what I have read

I think I read somewhere that it is supported in solo-rebase firmware, although I'm not 100% sure. If someone can confirm this, it would be appreciated.

I'm not familiar with those sensors, but in theory the I2C protocol allows up to 127 unique addresses, and I think that I had previously read that the solo has two I2C buses. The smart battery and the compass use two of the addresses. My understanding is that as long as no two sensors share the same address, this would work, but at any given time, the solo can only communicate with one of the sensors (since they all share the same lines, they cant all speak at the same time).

I would think the bigger issue would be how the software is modified to use and react to the different sensor data... If you go down this road, please share what you learn.

From what I've read, position hold and altitude hold using PX4FLOW and LIDAR-Lite is relatively simple as Arducopter supports it with the solo-rebase firmware. I'm not sure whether sweep will work. I know that Arducopter supports 360 Lidar for obstacle avoidance using a LightWare SF40, but I haven't seen anyone use it on a Solo. I'm hoping sweep will provide similar functionality.