If you tell me exactly what you need I will make it happen.
I need to know the digital output format and whether the data is emitted by polling (how to poll?) or free running.
Has their been any progress with a auto altitude option using the micron altimeter?
Could you use the Tritech analogue out voltage âpin 5â direct into the pixhawk input for a sonar input?
There is support for analog input for rangefinders! Redirecting...
This fact escaped my memory in the conversation previously.
The serial output could also be used with a small python program.
Now having the altimeter input into the pixhawk, how does this input improve the rovâs operation?
You can hold a distance to the bottom rather than a distance to the surface. You can also see the distance to the bottom in the telemetry display.
Any ideas on altimeters to use for this bottom tracking function?
See the second post in this topic Altimeter and auto altitude - #2 by jwalser
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How much of a change to the handling of the ROV has the micron altimeter made for you? With this 6 degree altimeter sonar has it helped with terrain following and station keeping.
I havenât used it much. I only accomplished preliminary tests in a pool before I moved on from that project and the hardware was transferred to the owners.
We have our own altimeter coming soon that we have used more. It will allow you to do terrain following, without such a device terrain following is not possible. These types of device will not help you with station keeping, it provides no data about your position in the xy plane.
Very exciting news about your altimeter! (just between ourselves when can I place an order)
Have you ever tried to use a lidar for the terrain following function?
Hello,
We are trying to write an altitude hold mode on a BlueROV2, we have already mounted a Micron echosounder (it looks just like yours) and are streaming distance readings through MAVROS. Based on the documentation here (https://www.ardusub.com/operators-manual/altimeters.html), it seems we should be able to use the altimeter instead of the depth sensor by simply sending mavlink messages via a distance range message.
We have written our own pymavlink wrapper that calls mav.distance_sensor_send(), and have also updated the RNGFNDR_TYPE to Mavlink in QGC. However, there are no indications that this behavior is working. We believe we are successfully sending the mavlink message (which we monitor by echoing the MAVROS topic /mavlink/to, and checking for message id 132, which we believe corresponds to the distance sensor message ID). We have also tried using MAVROSâ interface to publish distance readings, but again, thereâs no indication that the PX4 is receiving these readings or using them. The readings are also not showing up in the QGC rangefinder listings.
Since it sounds like youâve gotten this working already, do you have any pointers on how to properly achieve this or what we might be doing wrong/missing?
Thank you very much!
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Can you install TeamViewer and meet with me when you have everything up and running?
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Following up on this years later as I have not found a different thread. With the ability in Cockpit, has anyone created something to allow the down pinger to follow the contour of the bottom, perhaps like have it keep a 1 meter distance from the bottom as the contour changes? This rather than the depth hold feature.
Hi @skerkvli -
The keyword youâre looking for is SurfTrack. Apologies, itâs a fairly new feature (4.5+ ArduSub) so isnât easy to find documentation about.
In answer to your question, yes- this is known as SurfTrack mode, and can be used regardless of GCS software (Cockpit, QGC, etc.) It can be used with the Ping single-beam sonar, or DVLs that output altitude. Whatever distance the user is from the bottom is held once enabled, although a user can adjust this offset distance at any time in the usual way (via configured joystick axis for vertical motion.) This is just like alt_hold mode, except it uses the altitude source rather than the pressure sensor measuring depth.