Hardware/Pixhawk Dev Call: Nov 5, 2019

Call Moderators

Agenda Items

BMS Discussion

We need to help battery vendors find a market in our industry, it only makes sense for them when they can sell in volume.

  • Common sizes that could be bought, proposals for connectors
  • Needs specs from vendors

Action: Some attendees of the call will share their BMS requirements.

MMC

Gary Gu from MMC joined the call and gave us a brief history of MMC involvement in BMS products. (discussion captured on the BMS WG document below. :point_down:)

Payload Discussion

We are missing the electrical and mechanical side of the payload interface. The MAVLink spec for payloads is already defined and ready, thanks to the work on the MAVSDK. Discussions on the group will focus on Electronics and Mechanics.

Freefly has done some work on the mechanical side, they are looking into a duck-tale design mount that guides the connector really solidly. Currently looking for ways to slim it down.

Action: Freefly will present design on the next call.

V5X Discussion

We will have a block diagram for the next call, we are looking for feedback from the community, on what sort of information should the standard include.

Questions to group

  • What would the community like to document, what information needs to be included on those documents
  • PAB to what degree would need to document this.
  • Any of the power pins we need to define what the current should be, de-rating with temp, and any of those
  • Mechanical mounting, how far off can you be, whatโ€™s the tolerance.

Action: Next call we will have a block diagram from @MichaelSchaeuble

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Errata and Feedback

Let me know below if I failed to capture anything the right way, and if there are any updates, or you have feedback on the call format.

BMS Work Group

Group Goals

Standardize as much as possible the BMS hardware and software for the UAV industry, using open-source tools. The vendors attending have expressed interest and already have partly identified and solved common problems. The main goal is to define the basic system and interfaces, followed by the proper software protocol and subsequent implementation on PX4.

List of companies on the Work Group

  • Ark Electronics
  • Auterion
  • NXP Semiconductors
  • Freefly
  • Suburban Embedded
  • Zubax Robotics
  • ModalAI

:point_down: Detailed minutes found on work doc. This doc is public. (please request edit access if you wish to contribute)

Payload Work Group

Group Goals

The payload working group is tasked with defining the needs of a cross-vendor MAVLink enabled payload interface using open-source. The goal is to define or augment the payload management sub-protocol in MAVLink and define the minimum requirements for a Hardware implementation.

List of companies on the Work Group

:point_down: See doc for full info on wg, document is public. (please request access if you wish to contribute)