CUBEPILOT – HereFlow Optical Flow and LiDAR Sensor

HereFlow Optical Flow Sensor

The HereFlow optical flow sensor is a lightweight optical flow sensor including a short range lidar which uses the CAN protocol to communicate with the autopilot. This can be used to improve horizontal position control especially in GPS denied environments.

Connection to Autopilot

• The flow sensor should be mounted on the underside of the copter with the camera lens pointing downwards. The side of the sensor with the lens should be towards the front of the vehicle.
• Connect the sensor to the autopilots’ CAN port (if using a Cube note that pre-Apr 2019 boards have CAN1 and CAN2 swapped)
• Set FLOW_TYPE = 6 (DroneCAN)
• Set CAN_P1_DRIVER = 1 to enable DroneCAN
• Set CAN_D1_PROTOCOL = 1 (DroneCAN)

To use the onboard lidar (not recommended):

• Set RNGFND1_TYPE = 24 (DroneCAN)
• Set RNGFND1_MAX_CM = 300 to set range finder’s maximum range to 3m

Additional Notes

• As with the PX4Flow sensor a range finder is required to use the sensor for autonomous modes including Loiter and RTL
• FlowHold does not require the use of a rangefinder

other sensors available