Servo Firmware v0.1.1 Release Information

Written By Frederick Kummer

What is This Post About?

Vertiq has created a new servo firmware release, v0.1.1, for a selection of our production modules and has made it available for customers to evaluate. This firmware release introduces several new features and updates to improve the customer experience. We realize that choosing when to update your module’s firmware can be difficult as it may not be clear what the benefits of the upgrade are and if it will have any effect on existing functionality you depend on. This post aims to describe, in detail, what has changed with this latest firmware update so you can understand what new functionality is available and what (if any) existing functionality has been modified.


This new release can be found on our website at vertiq.co.

What Modules Are Impacted?

This firmware update is specifically for the production versions of a selection of our G2 modules as well as the Vertiq 81-08 G1 85Kv. If you only have beta versions of these modules, this update may not be available for your module. Specifically, the modules supported by this update are:

  • 40-06 370Kv (M34.1, M34.2, M34.3, M34.4, M34.5, M34.6, M34.7)

  • 40-14 400Kv (M35.1, M35.2, M35.3, M35.4, M35.5, M35.6)

  • 60-08 150Kv (M47.1, M47.2, M47.3, M47.4, M47.5)

  • 81-08 G1 85Kv (M28.0)

  • 81-08 G2 85Kv (M28.2, M28.3, M28.4, M28.5, M28.6)

  • 81-17 G2 110Kv (M42.0, M42.1, M42.2, M42.3, M42.4, M42.5)

Overview of Important Changes

This is a brief list of important changes in this release, and should be used as a general overview of new or altered features. Details on these changes can be found later in this post.

  • Introduction of DroneCAN for servo control

    • DroneCAN ArrayCommand support (unitless and position control)

    • DroneCAN Actuator Status telemetry

    • LED control

    • Dynamic node ID allocation

    • Parameter setting

    • Reboot node

    • DroneCAN tunneling

    • Health monitoring

  • Introduces IQUART Flight Controller Interface for unitless servo control

  • Introduces linear displacement unitless control

  • Introduces LED control for servo modules

Can I Continue Using My Current Firmware?

We understand that you may not want to immediately upgrade to the latest firmware for various reasons. To facilitate this, the previous firmware versions will still be available on our website on your module’s page.

Will the Control Center Also Be Updated?

The Control Center has also been updated to expose support for these new features as part of version 1.10.1. Additional parameters will be visible in the Control Center to support the new features in this update.

New Features

This section details new features that have been added as part of this firmware update.

DroneCAN Support

DroneCAN is a CAN based protocol commonly used for controlling drone motors. A full explanation of the DroneCAN protocol can be found here. 

This firmware upgrade enables use of DroneCAN for control over your servo module via the ArrayCommand message.  Vertiq modules support both Commands of type COMMAND_TYPE_UNITLESS and COMMAND_TYPE_POSITION. Details about Vertiq’s support of ArrayCommands as well as the necessary module configurations are discussed in our Read-The-Docs.

Additionally, your servo modules will report module telemetry through the ActuatorStatus message . Vertiq’s support for ActuatorStatus is discussed in detail in our documentation. Please note that our modules do not support the force measurement, and report NAN in that field.

We have also created a tutorial for controlling your Vertiq servo module with a PX4 flight controller via ArrayCommand messages. This guide can be found here.

The other DroneCAN features introduced in this firmware upgrade are shared by Vertiq’s speed firmware. Full documentation of these features is discussed in our documentation here.

IQUART Flight Controller Interface (IFCI) Unitless Servo Control

Vertiq’s IQUART Flight Controller Interface (IFCI) provides an efficient method for controlling Vertiq modules via our IQUART protocol. This firmware update introduces a unitless servo control type to IFCI allowing for battery voltage percentage, voltage, velocity, angular displacement, and linear displacement control. To learn more about this new IFCI control type, and how IFCI commands are mapped to actuation, please see our documentation here.

Linear Displacement Unitless Control Option

This firmware upgrade introduces a new form of unitless control to the Servo Input Parser. Like the other Servo Input Parser modes, when controlling your module in linear displacement mode, the input raw value is mapped to target linear displacement based on your configured unit minimum, unit maximum, and meters per radian. You can read more about Input Parser modes and mapping here.

LED Control

With servo release v0.1.1 you can now interface directly with Vertiq’s LED add-on board. You can control your LEDs with either DroneCAN or Vertiq’s IQUART protocol.

Details on LED control with DroneCAN are covered in our DroneCAN documentation.

Details on controlling your LEDs via IQUART can be found here.

Questions

If you have questions about these changes, you can contact support@vertiq.co for more information.

Frederick Kummer
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