T265 Forward-facing Issues during outdoors

PX4 Autopilot
1

Hello, dear community. Perhaps this is not the correct place to ask but I need help.
Thank you

Required Info about Realsense camera
Camera Model T265
Firmware Version 0.2.0.951
Operating System & Version Linux (Ubuntu 18)
Kernel Version (Linux Only) 4.9.201
Platform NVIDIA Jetson
SDK Version { legacy / 2.49.0 }
Language python
Segment Drone

Issue Description

Dear community.
I have built a drone for research purposes by using pixhawk, Jetson TX2, and T265 Realsense.
T265 Camera is facing forward.
I have been holding several tests indoors and its performance is good enough. But when I do the test outdoors the drone goes up losing its control. Below is the workflow of the drone.

  1. Setmode to Offboard
  2. Arm the vehicle
  3. Takeoff to the target position Z= 1.5m
  4. Hold the position until the flight mode be equal to “land.mode” by pressing the “y” key

The above workflow works perfectly in indoor tests but outdoors it does not work, three days ago with the sun shining and the drone looking on the opposite side to the sun, so the drone takeoff and thanks to the thread linking the landing pad with the drone, the drone did not go up more than 3 meters.

Is there any suggestion on how to solve this issue?
Any help is appreciated.
Thank you so much

2

Hi @subarashi ,
can you provide more details? Logs? Using ROS? then Rosbags…just by watching the video is tricky.

From the video I also noticed that the “cable” seams too short. Causing some sling effect in it. Maybe should mind that.

3

Hi @pedro thank you for your answer. What kind of log you need?
I am using ROS melodic, mavros, auterion bridge for t265 and ros.
The maximum altitude was set to 1.5meter and the cable is 2 meters.

4

To start the px4 log should be enough. But if you could also attach the ros bag would probably also help.

5

I am sorry for my late reply. Here is the PX4 log.
I don’t know what kind of rosbag I should show you because ROS is working quite well, but the camera values are as shown below. As I said, the maximum altitude must be 1.5 meters

[rosout][INFO] 2021-10-05 22:18:47,001: Position and Orientation:
position:
x: -0.00182692066301
y: 0.011494521983
z: 0.0167745109648
orientation:
x: 0.00469056097791
y: 0.00604091305286
z: -0.0553487017751
w: 0.998437821865
[rosout][INFO] 2021-10-05 22:18:48,000: Position and Orientation:
position:
x: -0.0160316992551
y: 0.00979344174266
z: 0.107807435095
orientation:
x: 0.00327874603681
y: 0.010778513737
z: -0.0596004985273
w: 0.998158752918
[rosout][INFO] 2021-10-05 22:18:49,000: Position and Orientation:
position:
x: -0.184028148651
y: 0.0580295138061
z: -1.2542321682
orientation:
x: -0.032878793776
y: -0.0760004222393
z: -0.11099306494
w: 0.990365386009
[rosout][INFO] 2021-10-05 22:18:50,005: Position and Orientation:
position:
x: -0.996193289757
y: 0.116951912642
z: -8.09262752533
orientation:
x: -0.0708105117083
y: 0.0350802913308
z: -0.340562999249
w: 0.936894893646
[rosout][INFO] 2021-10-05 22:18:50,371: Position and Orientation:
position:
x: -1.4446028471
y: 0.163662314415
z: -11.9572515488
orientation:
x: 0.00798855163157
y: 0.00420532980934
z: -0.409396618605
w: 0.912311851978
[rosout][INFO] 2021-10-05 22:18:50,481: Position and Orientation:
position:
x: -1.51953101158
y: 0.157482594252
z: -12.8222665787
orientation:
x: -0.021706962958
y: 0.0133428573608
z: -0.414080768824
w: 0.90988355875
[rosout][INFO] 2021-10-05 22:18:50,958: Position and Orientation:
position:
x: -2.08501005173
y: 0.373626947403
z: -17.877790451
orientation:
x: -0.0217769425362
y: 0.0108450101689
z: -0.412125736475
w: 0.910802185535

6

Looks like the T265 is providing wrong position input to the FCU. This could be several things. Vibrations on the T265 camera, glare on the cameras?..

Check you ros logs for the T265 odometry output. The issue is there.
Perhaps instead of facing forward try facing down.

7

I have found the solution. The problem was that the landing pad was a white surface with s lack of features so the t265 lose its position