We’ve been running companion computers from BlueRobotics on a research project that’s spanned about a year. We’re trying to debug some latency / lock ups that happen while operating a recent companion computer from BlueRobotics. These lockups happen intermittently and seem to be related to the network connection. e.g. They happen while transferring large files and while transferring a video stream from the companion computer. These issues don’t occur on older companion computers that we’ve been working with for awhile.
One possible culprit is we’ve noticed that there’s a noticeable increase in background process cpu usage in the newer companion computer and wondering if anyone knows where it’s potentially coming from and if it’s possible to disable. The older companion computers are running version 0.0.15 of the companion software and the recent companion computer is running 0.0.17. The idle cpu load on 0.0.15 is ~5% across all 4 threads and the idle cpu load on 0.0.17 ~30-40%. I’ve linked screenshots of the htop output of a companion computer running the old and new version here: Imgur: The magic of the Internet
That CPU usage should not cause any issues. Could you track it down to any specific process?
If you notice the issue while transferring files, it could also be due do disk IO. Check what type of SD card you are using, upgrading to a class 10 could help.
The RPi is running Companion version 0.0.22. The CPU Load after about an hour of use, runs well over 100%. Sometimes as high as 122%. The tell-tale sign is video dropping out. Delays from the controller takes 2-4 seconds to take affect. The SoC temp is running around 70 degrees.
Is the temp driving the high CPU load, or the high CPU load driving up the temp? The ambient water temp is 11 degrees C.
I ran ‘top’ in the terminal window, and this is what it looks like. It seems Mavproxy is at the top of the list at over 90%. Not sure where to look now…
