Best option for Camera + Gimbal

PX4 Autopilot
1

Hi there,

I am fully custom building a drone and am looking for the best option for a gimbal + camera to use as a payload. I currently am using a RPi 4b as a companion computer to control whatever camera and gimbal I go with, but am willing to change that. I really don’t want to buy into a vertically integrated system - I’d like to be able to use any VTX I’d like.

I’m currently trying to get the Siyi A8 mini to work, but it seems like you need to buy into the Siyi ecosystem for things to work without major hassle. I’m currently planning on using the Logitech c920 webcam (because it works with wfb-ng). Then I would build my own gimbal and write a custom gimbal device program. This also seems like a major hassle but gives me the control I want over the system.

However I think the perfect solution would be a gimbal that’s plug and play with px4 and holds a webcam/gopro that can be streamed through the rpi. Do these exist? I’m happy to spend some money to find one.

Thanks in advance for any help!

2

You may want to look at emulating an already-supported unit. This should save you the extra work of writing and maintaining drivers to control is in PX4.

There are many ways to do this, including adding your own IMU and stabilizing it within your system so it only needs servo inputs from the FC to adjust the stabilized direction. This is fairly simple to do with inexpensive components.

If you wanted to go all out, you could parse the mavlink stream and use GPS to provide an interface to look at a point on the ground.

If it were me, I’d go with the first option.