Ascend Engineering has conducted the official testing of the dual GPS configuration for heading determination included in PX4 1.16. This important validation of Jacob Dahl's bugfix ensured this feature update made it into the latest release of PX4. The implementation uses two GPS units connected via CAN bus through a CAN splitter into the flight controller. The system designates one receiver as the rover (Instance 0) and the other as the moving base (Instance 1). Heading data flows from the...

What is ACO? Ascend Collision Overwatch (ACO) is a collision-prevention application that integrates LightWare’s SF45 rotating LiDAR sensor into your drone’s flight stack. Running alongside mission mode, ACO monitors your flight path for obstacles up to 40 meters away. When an obstacle is detected, the drone automatically commands a stop and enters a hold-position state until manually floACOwn to safety by an operator. ACO runs on VOXL 2 and Auterion Skynode platforms, supports both PX4 and...

Autonomous flight relies on precise environmental awareness to navigate safely and reliably. One key enabler of this capability is LiDAR technology, which has a long history of rock-solid performance and accuracy in the surveying and mapping industry. Another is companion computers, which have added leaps in intelligent processing power beyond what a flight controller alone can provide. The voxl-os1-server project , developed by Zachary Lowell, Co-Founder of Ascend Engineering, bridges the...