VOXL 2 IO Developer Guide

Table of contents

1. Overview
   1. Hardware
   2. Software
      1. High Level Idea
      2. Rumning on VOXL2
      3. Rumning on VOXL2 IO

Overview

Hardware

• A battery powers VOXL2 (M0054) through a Power Module (M0041), and the battery also powers the ESCs/Motors
• VOXL2 J19 connects to VOXL2 IO J4 to provide both power and communications using a UART
• VOXL2 IO connects to an RC receiver (either J2 or J3, depending on user’s receiver type)
• VOXL2 IO J1 connects to a PWM breakboard board (M0022) and ‘communicates’ to the ESCs using PWM, which in turn spin the motors

Software

High Level Idea

VOXL2 runs PX4 and VOXL2 IO runs PX4IO. They share a register map and keep it synchronized. The VOXL2 IO has a control loop that includes mixing, and reacts to updates that are from VOXL2s px4io driver which populates the register map based updates to subscriptions.

Rumning on VOXL2

• On VOXL2 (M0054), the px4io driver runs on the sDSP/SLPI proc
• The px4io driver creates a bit of a hybrid device which has a few similarities as pwm_output device
• The voxl-px4.config script starts the detection and configuration process, including loading a mixer, which actually runs on VOXL2 IO (M0065)
• The px4io driver subscribes to various topics and updates the ‘registers’ on the VOXL2 IO board by sending commands over UART following a simple protocol

Rumning on VOXL2 IO

• Upon bootup, VOXL2 (M0054) detects the VOXL2 IO (M0065) board, and configures the VOXL2 IO board including loading of a mixer
• A control loop takes place, which involves checking various flags, updating status based upon updates from VOXL2, checking for inputs, handling outputs, etc