Ainstein US-D1 Radar Altimeter¶

The Ainstein US-D1 Radar Altimeter has a range of 50m, an update rate of 100hz and weighs only 110g.

Warning

currently the manufacturer warns that operation indoors can be problematic due to multi-path reflections…caution is advised

The user manual for this radar unit can be found here.

Note

Support for this sensor is available in ArduPilot firmware versions 4.0 and later

Where to Buy¶

Units can be purchased through Ainstein’s website.

The USD1 is available in serial and DroneCAN versions.

For a serial connection you can use any spare Serial/UART port. The example below shows how to connect to SERIAL4 as the first rangefinder.

SERIAL4_PROTOCOL = 9 (Lidar)
SERIAL4_BAUD = 38 (38400 baud)
RNGFND1_TYPE = 11 (USD1-Serial)
RNGFND1_MIN_CM = 50
RNGFND1_MAX_CM = 4500
RNGFND1_GNDCLEAR = 10 or more accurately the distance in centimeters from the range finder to the ground when the vehicle is landed. This value depends on how you have mounted the rangefinder.

For the CAN version, connect via CAN to the autopilot and set the following parameters:

CAN_P1_DRIVER = 1 (first can port driver set to driver 1)
CAN_D1_PROTOCOL = 7 (USD1 protocol for driver 1)
RNGFND1_TYPE = 33 (USD1_CAN)
RNGFND1_MIN_CM = 50
RNGFND1_MAX_CM = 4500
RNGFND1_GNDCLEAR = 10 or more accurately the distance in centimeters from the range finder to the ground when the vehicle is landed. This value depends on how you have mounted the rangefinder.

Distances read by the sensor can be seen in the Mission Planner’s Flight Data screen’s Status tab. Look closely for “sonarrange”.