Vehicle configuration

Cyclops needs to understand where the camera is relative to the flight controller IMU. This requires an accurate measurement of the two things:

• the translation from camera to flight controller (X/Y/Z distances)

• the camera rotation relative to the flight controller (roll/pitch/yaw angles)

Below is a sample walkthrough of a camera setup for our internal test VTOL plane (named Songbird).

1

Translation

Measure the translation between the camera and the flight controller

1. Measure the distance on the X axis (forward/backward).

   • The camera is mounted 10cm behind the flight controller.

2. Measure the distance on the Y axis (left/right).

   • The camera and flight controller are aligned, so we have 0m of translation.

3. Measure the distance on the Z axis (down/up).

   • The camera is mounted 12cm below the flight controller.

2

Rotation

Measure the rotation of the camera relative to the flight controller.

• The camera is aligned with the flight controller (pointing straight down, no rotation). We have 0 degrees of pitch, roll and yaw.

Configuration steps

After measuring the translation and rotation, use the Vehicles page on Vozilla to generate the vehicle config file for my UAV. The vehicle frame is in North East Down frame.

1. Click the + New Config button. This gives you a blank configuration.

2. Give a name to the vehicle configuration in the Config Name field.

3. Enter the three translation values:

   1. The camera is 10cm behind the flight controller, so I input -0.1 for X (Forward).

   2. The camera is aligned with the FC, so I leave Y at 0 (Right).

   3. The camera is 12cm below the FC, so I input 0.12 for Z (Down).

4. Configure the rotation.

   1. We don't have any rotation, so I leave all the rotation fields at 0.

5. Visually inspect the position of the camera (blue) relative to the flight controller (red). The translation and rotation should reflect how your camera is mounted on your vehicle.

6. If everything looks correct, click the Save button.

Be sure to save the vehicle configuration. If your UAV is connected to Vozilla over Ethernet, saving the configuration will automatically upload it to the edge device.

Cyclops has a vehicle configuration describing the position of the camera on your UAV.