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ModalAI VOXL Flight

PX4 v1.11

WARNING

PX4 does not manufacture this (or any) autopilot. Contact the manufacturer for hardware support or compliance issues.

The ModalAI VOXL Flight (Datasheet) is one of the first computing platforms to combine the power and sophistication of Snapdragon with the flexibility and ease of use of PX4 on an STM32F7. Made in the USA, VOXL Flight supports obstacle avoidance and GPS-denied (indoor) navigation fused with a PX4 flight controller on a single PCB.

VOXL-Flight

INFO

This flight controller is manufacturer supported.

Specifications

System

FeatureDetails
Weight26 g

Companion Computer

FeatureDetails
Base Operation SystemLinux Yocto Jethro with 3.18 kernel. Additional Linux Operating Systems can be used by running Docker on VOXL, details here
ComputeQualcomm Snapdragon 821 w/ 4GB LPDDR4 1866MHz, Snapdragon 821 Datasheet, Docs
CPUQuad-core CPU up to 2.15GHz
GPUAdreno 530 GPU at 624MHz
Compute DSPHexagon compute DSP (cDSP) 825MHz
Sensor DSPHexagon sensor DSP (sDSP) 700MHz
Video4k30 Video Capture h.264/5 w/ 720p FPV
Camera InterfacesSupport for MIPI-CSI2, USB UVC, HDMI
Wi-FiPre-certified Wi-Fi module QCNFA324 FCC ID:PPD-QCNFA324, QCA6174A modem, 802.11ac 2x2 Dual-band, Bluetooth 4.2 (dual-mode)
4G LTEOptional add-on module
Microhard pDDLOptional add-on module
GNSSWGR7640 10Hz
I/O1x USB3.0 OTG (ADB port), 1x USB2.0 (expansion port), 2x UART, 3x I2C, additional GPIO and SPI can be configured
Storage32GB (UFS 2.0), Micro SD Card
SoftwareDocker, OpenCV 2.4.11, 3.4.6, 4.2, ROS Indigo, Qualcomm Machine Vision SDK, see GitLab for lots of open source examples!
IMUsICM-42688 (SPI10), ICM-20948 (SPI1)
BarometerBMP280

Flight Controller

FeatureDetails
MCU216MHz, 32-bit ARM M7 STM32F765II
Memory256Kb FRAM
2Mbit Flash
512Kbit SRAM
FirmwarePX4
IMUsICM-20602 (SPI1)
ICM-42688 (SPI2)
BMI088 (SPI6)
BarometerBMP388 (I2C4)
Secure ElementA71CH (I2C4)
microSD CardInformation on supported cards
InputsGPS/Mag
Spektrum
Telemetry
CAN bus
PPM
Outputs6 LEDs (2xRGB)
8 PWM Channels
Extra Interfaces3 serial ports
I2C
GPIO

INFO

More detailed hardware documentation can be found here.

Dimensions

FlightCoreV1Dimensions

3D STEP File

PX4 Firmware Compatibility

VOXL Flight is fully compatible with the official PX4 Firmware from PX4 v1.11.

ModalAI maintains a branched PX4 version for PX4 v1.11. This includes UART ESC support and improvements in VIO and VOA that are planned to be upstreamed.

More information about the firmware can be found here.

QGroundControl Support

This board supported in QGroundControl 4.0 and later.

Availability

Quick Start

A quickstart from the vendor is located here.

voxl-vision-px4

The VOXL Flight runs voxl-vision-px4 on the companion computer portion of the hardware serving as a sort of MAVLink proxy. For details, the source code is available here

Connectors

Detailed information about the pinouts can be found here.

Top

VOXLFlightTop

Note: 1000 Series connectors accessible from the STM32/PX4

ConnectorSummaryUsed By
J2Hires 4k Image Sensor (CSI0)Snapdragon - Linux
J3Stereo Image Sensor (CSI1)Snapdragon - Linux
J6Cooling Fan ConnectorSnapdragon - Linux
J7BLSP6 (GPIO) and BLSP9 (UART)Snapdragon - Linux
J13Expansion B2BSnapdragon - Linux
J14Integrated GNSS Antenna ConnectionSnapdragon - Linux
J1001Programming and Debug/UART3STM32 - PX4
J1002UART ESC, UART2/TELEM3STM32 - PX4
J1003PPM RC InSTM32 - PX4
J1004RC Input, Spektrum/SBus/UART6STM32 - PX4
J1006USB 2.0 Connector (PX4/QGroundControl)STM32 - PX4
J10078-Channel PWM/DShot OutputSTM32 - PX4
J1008CAN BusSTM32 - PX4
J1009I2C3, UART4STM32 - PX4
J1010Telemetry (TELEM1)STM32 - PX4
J1011I2C2, Safety Button InputSTM32 - PX4
J1012External GPS & Mag, UART1, I2C1STM32 - PX4
J1013Power Input, I2C3STM32 - PX4 (powers whole system)

Bottom

VOXLFlightBottom

Note: 1000 Series connectors accessible from the STM32/PX4

ConnectorSummaryUsed By
J4Tracking/Optic Flow Image Sensor (CSI2)Snapdragon - Linux
J8USB 3.0 OTGSnapdragon - Linux, adb
J10BLSP7 UART and I2C off-boardSnapdragon - Linux
J11BLSP12 UART and I2C off-boardSnapdragon - Linux
VOXL microSDSnapdragon - Linux
PX4 microSD32Gb MaxSTM32 - PX4
Wi-Fi AntennasIncludedSnapdragon - Linux

User Guide

The full user guide is available here.

How to Build

To build PX4 for this target:

make modalai_fc-v1

Serial Port Mapping

Note: mappings shown are for the PX4 controlled interfaces only

UARTDevicePort
USART1/dev/ttyS0GPS1 (J1012)
USART2/dev/ttyS1TELEM3 (J1002)
USART3/dev/ttyS2Debug Console (J1001)
UART4/dev/ttyS3Expansion UART (J6)
UART5/dev/ttyS4UART between PX4 and Companion Computer
USART6/dev/ttyS5RC (J1004)
UART7/dev/ttyS6TELEM1 (J1010)
UART8/dev/ttyS7N/A

Support

Please visit the ModalAI Forum for more information.