My daughter and I are looking at adding a pH sensor, Turbidity sensor and a TDS sensor to her ROV; we are hoping to get the outputs displayed on the QGC, is this something that is possible, does anyone have a link on where we can go to research this? All of the sensors are designed for an Arduino interface. We are running the advanced ROV electronics package with the Raspberry Pi.
Thanks!
That would be fabulous! I would have a customer signed up tomorrow if this capability was available.
Terry,
I know we will get it done; just going to be a matter of the communications lol.
The downfall at this point is the depth concerns. We are using this in inland waters, so our max depth is only about 15’. Most of the sensors we can afford definitely can’t withstand any significant pressures, but we will work on that side.
When we get it worked out, we’ll let you know; this has been one hell of an expensive science project for us lol, maybe we can recoup some of the money lol.
Wayne
Thanks Wayne, look forward to it. For UK reservoirs we are looking at a depth of approx. 20m.
I am sure you could recoup some money by offering a sensor / software package.
maybe you can get the arduino to talk to pixhawk via i2c?
i have looked at ph sensors when fixing my hot tub but they are fairly expensive, and need calibration quite often. have you found what sensor you are going to use?
It is possible, but it will take some time to study and learn the code base.
The software is open source and hosted on github.
You can learn about how the software components work and communicate at ardusub.com.
I’m curious, have you selected your sensors? I’ve used the environmental probes/sensors from Atlas Scientific, including pH. I haven’t had the greatest experience with them, but don’t know of anything better in the size and price range.
@skcolb, We are using the sensors from Gravity Analog;
They are not advertised as being water proof, but I think we can manage to take care of that on our end. They were very inexpensive, but I do question their durability in an underwater environment. As we are staying coastal and will maintain a depth of less than 20 feet, they should be ok.
Wayne
@jwalser, Thank you for pointing me in the right direction; we should receive the probes tomorrow and should start working on the communication side this weekend.
I know I’m a bit late to this conversation but… we have developed a new type of pH sensor that doesn’t need calibrating. We successfully integrated it onto the BlueRov2 earlier this year for initial field tests, so if you’re interested please get in touch.
Best,
Kay
www.anbsensors.com
It should be quite straight forward to strap a YSI sonde (or similar) to the ROV and pass serial via the Blue Robotics BLUART USB. Most sondes can be set to just stream serial data with a chosen CRLF. We’ve strapped one dumb to the ROV and just time matched data at a later date, but live feed of serial would be easy enough.
If you want it integrated into QGC, then a little coding will be needed.
I was going to say the same thing about the YSI, we have an EXO1 that has a serial connection that can be wet mated…we use it for UAV profiles in mining pits and do not transfer live data. The one we have has a 250 depth rating.