We are building a drone for our final year project. The Drone must autonomously fly and collect data through a lidar (no gimbal used due to budget restrictions). All the components were chosen wisely. Our remaining dilemma is the Lidar. They are expansive and they need stability ( gimbals).
My questionis: What are the affordable existing lidars that might help us to acheive our goal?!
The lidar will be fixed on the bottom of the drone using a special fixation (3D designed). The drone will swipe specific area autonomously ( 15 min of max flight time). A 3D map of the below area must be obtained!!
For your needs I wouls suggest the slamtec lidar. It does all of the filtering onboad and the co processor runs the SLAM (simultaneous location and mapping) algorithm to effectively output a map and the devices position within in. You can find out more about it here. It is also very affordable for what it can do.
Your post is very helpful! I red before about RP lidar A1 and A2 because they were affordable! RP lidar A3 was too expensive. However, your suggestion “M1M1” is seductive but the lidar with the firmware will cost me around 350$! (Delivery + customs) So it’s over budget!
I’m thinking in buying the V3 lite Lidar and i will implement it on a motor and will do the coding (it’s an FInal Year Project)!
