HTC VIVE Tracker Connection Loss

[ragewrath]

I am using VIVE trackers for robots locolization. The trackers work well on ground robots but badly (with occasional connection loss) on air robots (like quadrotors). Obviously when giving too much noise (from motors) to IMU, a connction-break function in the firmware would be triggered.  

[ragewrath]

Adding a digital filter to accelerometer data & gyroscope data (cut off at 30~40Hz)  would solve this problem. But currently I don't know how to modify the firmware. 

[HackPerception]

,

 

In short, we recommend mechanical dampening/isolation to address vibration/noise This is unfortunately a hardware dependent answer to an extent.

 

There was a Low Pass Filter (LPS) option accessible in the first generation's tracker firmware that was added during the final tracker firmware revision for that hardware (version 0.2). This is documented on page 27 of the Vive Tracker Developer Guidelines (Ver. 1.5). That said, in real-world usage it was not as effective as mechanical dampeing and often still required it. 

 

With Tracker 2018, due to some of the technology changes, that featureset was unfortunately lost. We're investigating if it's feasible to reintroduce it but it is not currently something that's currently on the product roadmap. In the 2018 Vive Tracker Guidelines (Ver. 1.0) we include a section talking about mechanical dampening on page 16 that specifically addressed the behavior you're seeing and one way we've found to reduce motion transfer into the tracker. 

 

At this point, mechanical isolation is really the only viable solution using Tracker 18 - that is, if your vehicle can take the additional weight. 

[ragewrath]

Thanks for your reply. In the picture, there is a rubber damper under the tracker. But the tracker still may lose the connection during flight(unpredictable). I am okay with the inaccuracy of  the state estimator caused by noise (like 1cm, even 10cm is okay for air robots). But a thorough connection loss is totally an unacceptable disaster for air robots. It causes serious accidents like crashing.  

[ragewrath]