We are looking to integrate a perception stack onto our Blue Robotics BlueBoat Surface Vessel. Our goal is to equip the platform with an onboard 3D LiDAR and camera system, running deep learning models to process environmental data and generate real-time navigation commands through ROS2.
To ensure low-latency processing for these DL models, we plan to use an NVIDIA Jetson Orin rather than the onboard Raspberry Pi as the Orin’s GPU capabilities are essential for the computational demands of our vision and LIDAR pipelines.
We would appreciate any advice from the community on the best practices for this integration.
Hi @Rahul -
Sounds like a cool project! I would recommend you install your Jetson alongside the Pi, and have it boss the autopilot around via pymavlink or ROS2. We’ve tested with the OLEI LR-16F, and it definitely generates quality data, that an operator could navigate from remotely - so presumably your software has a chance to navigate from it as well!
You should be able to get a community developed ROS2 extension running in BlueOS, although you may have to re-flash the OS to a 64 bit version for it to show up in the extension manager.
I was wondering, how do I get the Jetson communicate with the Pi. Is there any specific way you would suggest I should do it? I personally would prefer the boss around option rather than reflashing things on the Jetson.
Please do mention the extra electrical aspects which I need to take care of.
If your Jetson board is connected to the same network as the Raspberry Pi (e.g. via wifi, or an ethernet switch) you should be able to set up a MAVLink endpoint for it to connect to (presumably via MAVROS?), which you can then use to control the vehicle using your preferred method from the MAVLink offboard control interface.
Hi @Rahul -
As Eliot points out, to get the Jetson and Pi talking, they jst need to be on the same network! You could connect both to an ethernet switch - this one is intended to be easiest to integrate!
Are there other electrical aspects you were looking to address? Powering up the Jetson onboard the BlueBoat should just be a matter of a DCDC converter wired to an appropriate size fuse fitted in the Fuse Block..