Data from external payload sensors

Blue Robotics Software
1

Hi all,

I’m working to integrate a multi-parameter sensor sonde into the BlueROV2 Heavy lift, and would like to send the data to the topside via the fathom-X tether. The sensor data is in SDI-12 format, which I can read via USB converter with the raspberry pi.

I’m looking for advice on the easiest way to do this. The options I’m considering are:

  1. create a new mavlink message and decode the messages with pymavlink,
  2. write a bash script to send the sonde data to a seperate port over existing ethernet
  3. something else

Does anyone have advice, or can you direct me to posts where people have done similar things?

2

Hi Franz,

Thanks for the post! The most flexible way to do this is to make a script that sends the data to a separate UDP port over Ethernet. That method can handle just about any sensor integration, especially if the interface for that sensor can communicate with a UDP port.

Adding a new Mavlink message is possible, but I wouldn’t recommend it for this application. The Mavlink format has very specific message types and it is not easy to get new messages added to the standard.

-Rusty