New Emlid Raspbian Stable image [emlid-raspbian-20170323]

Hello, guys!

We’d like to let you know that the excessive Beta testing stage has officially come to an end and we are presenting you all our new Stable release for Navio2 and Navio+. It slightly changes the way you interact with Navio making it even easier. Take a look at our new shiny docs that we rewrote to make setting up Navio a breeze.

The release includes new exciting features:

  • ArduCopter 3.4.6, ArduPlane 3.7.1, ArduRover 3.1.2 are preinstalled by default
  • a bunch of systemd scripts to get you in the air as easy as it can be and also minimizing risks of misconfiguration
  • easy frame selection using update-alternatives mechanism
  • ROS (Indigo):
    For those looking to expand Navio capabilities beyond what ArduPilot offers, Robotics Operating System now comes preinstalled. It is a robust and accessible framework to build complicated robots.
  • Indigo release
  • mavros with mavlibconn 18
  • mavproxy
  • emlidtool:
    This is a new tool to make it easier for you to get information about your board, OS, kernel and etc. It will be used for other awesome features in the future. Just type emlidtool to get a hang of it!
  • Experimental Wi-Fi broadcast:
    Lets you broadcast video stream over Wi-Fi without introducing handshake delays giving you a feel of analogous video stream. It supports two chipsets at the moment (Ralink RT5572 and Atheros AR9172).

Thanks to all of you and especially our Beta testers! We hope using this release will be as pleasant as it was for us making it.

4 Likes

Hey George. Glad to see the stable release. Not off to great start.

  1. Country code is still in wpa supplicant
  2. SSH is not letting me in. Connection is being refused. Can see it and ping. Trying PuTTY and bash shell in Win10. No SSH via WiFi. Going to connect direct via ethernet and see if I can figure out what is going on.

Hello,

ssh pi@navio.local work fine on my Mac with wifi.

Marc

thanks @mlebret

was able to ssh into second one. first one is still giving me troubles. even after i dropped blank ssh file into boot. will try flashing it again.

Just going to drop notes as I find them so I do not forget. My earlier bitch about ssh is not valid. Seems to be a bad SD image on my side.

  • I do not care for the new update-alternatives. Like the way it was done in Beta better. Really like all the help in the files. Nice touch.

  • /etc/default/arducopter does not have enough parameters to pass for a setup with more than 2 flags such as wifi, Reach as 2nd GPS, LIDAR via USB to serial.

Simple fix is to add as required. Might need more notes in the help section on this use case.

> # Default settings for ArduPilot for Linux.
> # The file is sourced by systemd from arducopter.service

> TELEM1="-A udp:192.168.1.11:14550"
> TELEM2="-E /dev/ttyAMA0"
> TELEM3="-F /dev/ttyUSB0"

> # Options to pass to ArduPilot
> ARDUPILOT_OPTS="$TELEM1 $TELEM2 $TELEM3"
1 Like

Simple fix, please use arrays

Telem[1]=“option1”
Telem[2]=“option2”

Yes, I do know that arrays start with 0, I also know bash has sparse arrays so it makes more sense to start with 1

ARDUPILOT_OPTS=${Telem[@]} (ideally just get rid of the ARDUPILOT_OPTS variable as it is no longer needed

${Telem[@]} will output all options

Also, with arrays you can easily add so called telemetry options from a script, I will work on a quick one as an example.

UPDATE – well after a few distractions, finally getting to work, and more in-depth than expected here is an example script

if your interested id be willing to work with you to integrate a tool as such into the image, as is it does not write the output of the command to a config file, nor does it allow you to remove telemetry options from within the script. Just a proof of concept.

Will not spend more time unless there is interest here – as I’ve already spent enough if no ones going to end up using it… though I thought about how to get it to properly write to a config file.
I would

  1. check length of the array
  2. for num in array do (print options this way)
  3. where num is equal to all number counting up to the length of the array
2 Likes

After a goodnights rest I looked at this problem with a more logical approach. Since the program has been designed in a way to act like a tool, essentially it should just be be incorporated as one. By changing a couple things it could be integrated as command within the emlidtool. Then you do not need to worry about properly formatting the config file, which saves a lot of time. you would use the tool whenever you want to have it read your parameters back to you.

My script can already read back the array with each option on a separate line. Then, you either output the array directly to a config file with no formatting (very easy) or just set it as a environment variable (I believe ARDUPILOT_OPTS already is an environmental variable) and bam done. The only thing left would be to add a way to remove a telemetry option, which should be relatively easy.

Would be awesome if we can work together to get this integrated in the emlidtool, would be cleaner, and more user friendly.

1 Like

Thanks! It turned out the old approach wasn’t working for a lot of people. Some forgot to uncomment ExecStart, some did uncomment two statements and didn’t understand what’s going. We’ll add more notes in the future and possibly integrate the frame config in the emlidtool.

Okay, these are valid points! We’ll add more notes how to pass more options to ArduPilot. You’ve figured out how to do it, haven’t you, though? So I guess this was pretty easy to understand! :slight_smile:

@Deathstroke5467

Good idea! I’ll see to it.

This is actually what we had in mind in the first place. update-alternatives is just a robust and clear way to update links to binaries.

Guys, thanks for your very valuable input!

2 Likes

Much appreciated, If you get a chance take a look at the simple tool I made, might give you an idea of some features the tool could have.

Keep up the great work!

I agree with @Deathstroke5467

And I think you guys already know from trying to service the forum - the closer you get to a raspi-config type tool the better off you are going to be.

So far everything works as expected (except current sense as note in another post), and it is repeatable:

  • Navio2/RPi3
  • AUAV Power Module and Castle BEC for 5v to servo rail
  • FrSky x8 via SBUS
  • Dual GNSS (2nd is Reach with 2.2.7)
  • Raspi Cam running gstreamer at 720p (pipeline per Emlid docs)
  • Archer T2U at 5.8GHz (requires driver compile; and RPi built-in wifi is disabled)
  • External Mag via I2C (don’t try to fly a copter without one)
  • Lightware SF11 via USB to serial (with averaging filter turned on)
  • Ch9/10 set to run a Seagull MAP2 cam trigger and cam on/off
  • Sony A6000 w/ Tuffwing cable from hotshoe to Reach shutter event

Flight testing will be conducted over next several weeks. Will keep you posted.

2 Likes