I was looking to upgrade the much outdated Pixhawk in my current AUV. I was wondering why the BlueROV2 had the Navigator mounted on top of a Raspberry Pi. Furthermore what capabilities should I really pay attention to in the Navigator to make my sub especially capable in the autonomous aspect.
Hi @avijeetss -
Welcome to the forums!
The Navigator is unique in that it doesn’t contain a microcontroller like many flight controllers, including the Pixhawk. Ardupilot (ArduSub on your AUV?) instead runs on the Pi cpu - so this is inherently less “real time” than a drone autopilot, but this is not a limitation in the slower moving subsea environment.
One major advantage is that ArduSub integrates well with Lua scripts via BlueOS - check out this AUV related guide. As it mentions, if your vehicle has a position source you can even command navigation via lua scipts!
In addition, the USB ports on the Pi can work with cameras, and achieve limited machine vision tasks onboard - something a flight computer doesn’t typically do without extensive development and customization (aka a DJI drone.)