“Hello everyone, I’m looking to create a gimbal using the MAVLink protocol version 2. My current plan involves integrating a gimbal manager on a Raspberry Pi, connecting motor controllers and a camera to the Pi. I’m a bit confused about the feasibility of this architecture. Can anyone provide insights or guidance on whether this setup is possible? I appreciate any help or suggestions. Thank you!”
Hi! Do you need a gimbal manager or a gimbal device?
A gimbal manager involves quite a bit of functionality, like “deconfliction” of several input signals, support for lat/lon ROI (region of interest), etc.
A gimbal device on the other hand just acts as a simple gimbal. It goes to whatever angle that it is told to by the manager which is in the case PX4.
I have been meaning to create an example gimbal device using MAVSDK. Maybe we could team up?
Thank you for responding. I attempted to transmit gimbal topics specified in gimbal protocol v2 using pymavlink, but it’s not functioning with PX4 (I’m using Pixhawk 6C). The same issue persists with ArduPilot. Consequently, I’m considering developing a gimbal manager external to the flight controller, residing on the gimbal device itself. However, I’m facing challenges in sending the messages outlined in the protocol via Raspberry Pi, and I’m also unable to receive requests from QGroundControl. (My setup involves a Raspberry Pi connected to the flight controller via UART.)
ArduPilot has actually more and more support for gimbal v2 messages, so I’m a bit confused this doesn’t work at all for you.
On your other notes, you’re being very vague and I don’t really know how I could help you with that specifically.
HI! Did you ever get far on the MAVSDK gimbal device example?
I’m trying to implement something similar to the OP. I have a Siyi A8 camera and am running the Siyi A8 camera manager on an RPi (GitHub - julianoes/siyi-a8-mini-camera-manager: Camera Manager for SIYI A8 mini for RPi based on MAVSDK). It implements a camera server, but no gimbal control. I’d like to create a gimbal device using MAVSDK, but really don’t want to create a gimbal manager.
I’m happy to use the FC’s (Ardupilot) gimbal manager, but am not sure how to configure it to talk to a pure MAVLink2 device. I.e. my RPi is connected to the FC via a serial MAVLink connection.
There’s a MAVSDK example of how to control a gimbal, but not how to be a gimbal device.
Any sample code or pointers are appreciated.