Features

• Fully compatible with Jetson Orin NX/Nano

• Combines the power of Pixhawk & Jetson in a small form factor

• Pixhawk Autopilot Bus (PAB) open source specification

• Jetson & Autopilot are connected via UART, CAN, and Ethernet Switch

Jetson Orin NX/Nano Connectors

• Gigabit Ethernet

  • Connected to both Jetson & Autopilot via Ethernet Switch (RTL8367S) - 8-pin JST-GH - RJ45

    • Ethernet port & switch powered by circuit as the Pixhawk

  • 8-pin JST-GH

  • RJ45

• 2x MIPI CSI Camera Inputs

  • 4 Lanes each

  • 22-Pin Raspberry Pi Cam FFC

• 2x USB 3.2 Host Port

  • USB A

  • 1.5A Current Limit

• 2x USB 2.0 Host Port

  • 5-Pin JST-GH

  • 1.0A Current Limit

• USB 2.0 for Programming/debugging

  • USB-C

• M.2 Key M 2242/2280 for NVMe SSD

  • PCIEx4

• M.2 Key E 2230 for WiFi/BT

  • PCIEx2

  • USB

  • UART

  • I2S

• Mini HDMI Out

• 4x GPIO

  • 6-pin JST-GH

• CAN Port

  • Connected to Autopilot’s CAN2 (4 Pin JST-GH)

• SPI Port

  • 7-Pin JST-GH

• I2C Port

  • 4-Pin JST-GH

• I2S Port

  • 7-Pin JST-GH

• 2x UART Port

  • 1 for debug

  • 1 connected to Autopilot’s telem2

• Fan Power Port

  • Current limit 0.35A

• IIM42652 IMU

• Input Power

  • XT30 Connector

  • Voltage Rating: 7V-24V (2S-5S)

  • Separate input power circuits than the Autopilot to ensure flight safety

  • Holybro UBEC can be used for application above 4S

  • Note: The Pixhawk Jetson Baseboard has an integrated UBEC to convert 7V-24V to 5.0V for the Jetson. Using an external UBEC alongside the integrated one provides redundancy and easier replacement in case of BEC failure.

• Power Requirements

  • Depends on Usage and Peripherals, mininum ~15-30watt

Autopilot Flight Controller Connectors

• Pixhawk Autopilot Bus Interface - 100 Pin Hirose DF40 - 50 Pin Hirose DF40

  • Pixhawk Autopilot Bus (PAB) Form Factor

• Redundant Digital Power Module Inputs

  • I2C Power Monitor Support

  • 2x – 6 Pin Molex CLIK-Mate

  • Power Path Selector w/ Overvoltage Protection

• Voltage Ratings:

  • Max input voltage: 6V

  • USB Power Input: 4.75~5.25V

• 2 GPS Port

  • GPS1 - GPS Plus Safety Switch Port (10-Pin JST-GH)

  • GPS2 - basic GPS Port (6-pin JST-GH)

• 2x CAN Ports

  • 4 Pin JST-GH

• 3x Telemetry Ports with Flow Control

  • 2x 6-Pin JST-GH

  • 1 is connected to Jetson’s UART1 Port

• 16 PWM Outputs

  • 2x 10-Pin JST-GH

• UART4 & I2C Port

  • 6-Pin JST-GH

• Gigabit Ethernet port

  • Connected to both Jetson & Autopilot via Ethernet Switch (RTL8367S)

  • 8-pin JST-GH

  • RJ45

• AD & IO

  • 8-Pin JST-GH

• USB 2.0

  • USB-C

  • 4-pin JST-GH

• DSM Input

  • 3-pin JST-ZH 1.5mm Pitch

• RC in

  • PPM/SBUS

  • 5-pin JST-GH

• SPI Port

  • External Sensor Bus (SPI5aut

  • 11-Pin JST-GH

• 2x Debug Port

  • 1 for FMU

  • 1 for IO

  • 10-Pin JST-SH

• Current Ratings:

  • Telem1 output current limiter: 1.5A

  • All other port combined output current limiter: 1.5A

Dimension | Holybro Docs

Power 1 (Main), Power 2 Ports

(2.00mm Pitch CLIK-Mate)

Tel1, Tel3 Ports

CAN1, CAN2 Ports

GPS1 Port

GPS2 Port

UART4 & I2C Port

(also shown as UART&I2C on some board)

SPI Port

FMU USB Port

I2C Port

ETH-P1 Port

IO Debug Port

(JST-SH 1mm Pitch)

FMU Debug port

(JST-SH 1mm Pitch)

AD&IO port

DSM RC Port

(JST-ZH 1.5mm Pitch)

RC IN Port

SBUS Out Port

FMU PWM OUT (AUX OUT)

IO PWM OUT (MAIN OUT)

Orin USB2.0 Port

Orin Debug

(JST-SH 1mm Pitch)

Orin I2C Port

Orin GPIO Port

Orin Camera0 Port

Camera Serial Interface (CSI)

Orin Camera1 Port

Camera Serial Interface (CSI)

Orin SPI Port

Orin I2S Port

Block Diagram

Reference Wiring Diagram

Weight

• Without Jetson and Flight Controller: 85g

• With Jetson, no Heatsink or Flight Controller: 110g

• With Jetson and Heatsink, no Flight Controller: 175g

• With Jetson, Heatsink, and Pixhawk 6X Flight Controller: 185g

• With Jetson, Heatsink, Pixhawk 6X Flight Controller, M.2 SSD, M.2 Wi-Fi Module: 190g

Dimensions

(Unit in milimeter)

• Without Jetson and FC Module: 126 x 80 x 22.9mm

• With Jetson Orin NX + Heatsink/Fan & FC Module: 126 x 80 x 45mm

Two methods to flash the board:

SDK Manager:

This is a GUI-based solution by Nvidia which can be found from the link below: https://docs.nvidia.com/sdk-manager/install-with-sdkm-jetson/index.html

Note: Keep it in mind that at the time of writing this document, we chose to install Jetpack 5.1.2.

Command Line:

You could benefit from Nvidia flash guide .

CAN2 on the basboard is conneted internally to both FCU and Jetson module. The basics could be implemented from Nvidia user guide:

Controller Area Network (CAN) — Jetson Linux Developer Guide documentation

However, you could follow the below quick commands might make you able to loopback test the CAN connection between Jetson module and FCU on Jetson's terminal:

sudo modprobe mttcan
sudo ip link set can0 type can bitrate 500000 loopback on
sudo ip link set can0 up
candump can0 &
cansend can0 123#abcdabcd

The last command has to have the following output if can is running OK:

  can0  123   [4]  AB CD AB CD
  can0  123   [4]  AB CD AB CD

Popular cameras supported out of the box include IMX219 camera modules such as Raspberry Pi Camera Module V2. For theCSI camera basically you could benefit from Nvidia guide

Taking Your First Picture with CSI or USB CameraNVIDIA Developer

Holybro Jetson carrier board can have two CSI cameras connected. To give a short intro you can try the following commands in terminal in case you carrier board is connected to a display screen:

nvgstcapture-1.0

To open the capture on a specific cam you can pass the following (assuming we want to test cam1 on Orin_camera 1):

nvgstcapture-1.0 sensor-id=1

Serial Connection

Pixhawk TELEM2 is internally connected to Jetson module. Let us first check the connection on Jetson terminal. Consider having MAV connection to companion computers in advance. Check PX4 Docs for the details. For a sanity check you could run mavlink shell on /dev/ttyTHS1

Ethernet Connection

Since there is no DHCP server active in this configuration, the IPs have to be set manually: Once the ethernet cables are plugged in, the eth0 network interface seems to switch from DOWN to UP.

You can check the status using:

ip address show eth0

You can also try to enable it manually:

sudo ip link set dev eth0 up

It then seems to automatically set a link-local address, for me it looks like this:

ip address show eth0

2: eth0: <BROADCAST,MULTICAST,UP,LOWER_UP> mtu 1500 qdisc mq state UP group default qlen 1000
    link/ether xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx brd ff:ff:ff:ff:ff:ff
    inet 169.254.21.183/16 brd 169.254.255.255 scope global noprefixroute eth0
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever
    inet6 fe80::yyyy:yyyy:yyyy:yyyy/64 scope link 
       valid_lft forever preferred_lft forever

This means the Jetson’s ethernet IP is 169.254.21.183.

IP setup on FC

Now connect to the NuttX shell (using a console, or the MAVLink shell), and check the status of the link:

ifconfig

eth0    Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx at DOWN
        inet addr:0.0.0.0 DRaddr:192.168.0.254 Mask:255.255.255.0

For me it is DOWN at first.

To set it to UP:

ifup eth0

ifup eth0...OK

Now check the config again:

ifconfig

eth0    Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx at UP
        inet addr:0.0.0.0 DRaddr:192.168.0.254 Mask:255.255.255.0

However, it doesn’t have an IP yet. I’m going to set one similar to the one of Jetson:

ifconfig eth0 169.254.21.184

And check it:

ifconfig

eth0    Link encap:Ethernet HWaddr xx:xx:xx:xx:xx:xx at UP
        inet addr:169.254.21.184 DRaddr:169.254.21.1 Mask:255.255.255.0

Now the devices should be able to ping each other.

Note that this configuration is ephemeral and will be lost after a reboot, so we’ll need to find a way to configure it statically.

Ping test

First from the Jetson terminal:

ping 169.254.21.184

PING 169.254.21.184 (169.254.21.184) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 169.254.21.184: icmp_seq=1 ttl=64 time=0.188 ms
64 bytes from 169.254.21.184: icmp_seq=2 ttl=64 time=0.131 ms
64 bytes from 169.254.21.184: icmp_seq=3 ttl=64 time=0.190 ms
64 bytes from 169.254.21.184: icmp_seq=4 ttl=64 time=0.112 ms
^C
--- 169.254.21.184 ping statistics ---
4 packets transmitted, 4 received, 0% packet loss, time 3077ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 0.112/0.155/0.190/0.034 ms

And from the FC in Nuttx Shell:

ping 169.254.21.183

PING 169.254.21.183 56 bytes of data
56 bytes from 169.254.21.183: icmp_seq=0 time=0 ms
56 bytes from 169.254.21.183: icmp_seq=1 time=0 ms
56 bytes from 169.254.21.183: icmp_seq=2 time=0 ms
56 bytes from 169.254.21.183: icmp_seq=3 time=0 ms
56 bytes from 169.254.21.183: icmp_seq=4 time=0 ms
56 bytes from 169.254.21.183: icmp_seq=5 time=0 ms
56 bytes from 169.254.21.183: icmp_seq=6 time=0 ms
56 bytes from 169.254.21.183: icmp_seq=7 time=0 ms
56 bytes from 169.254.21.183: icmp_seq=8 time=0 ms
56 bytes from 169.254.21.183: icmp_seq=9 time=0 ms
10 packets transmitted, 10 received, 0% packet loss, time 10010 ms

MAVLink/MAVSDK test

For this, we need to set the mavlink instance to send traffic to the Jetson’s IP:

For an initial test we can do:

mavlink start -o 14540 -t 169.254.21.183

This will send MAVLink traffic on UDP to port 14540 (the MAVSDK/MAVROS port) to that IP which means MAVSDK can just listen to any UDP arriving at that default port.

To run a MAVSDK example, install mavsdk via pip, and try out an example from MAVSDK-Python/examples.

For instance:

python3 -m pip install mavsdk

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mavlink/MAVSDK-Python/main/examples/tune.py
chmod +x tune.py
./tune.py

PX4

ROS 2 User Guide | PX4 User Guide (main)

Holybro Pixhawk Jetson Baseboard | PX4 Guide (main)

Companion Computers | PX4 User Guide (main)

Ardupilot

Companion Computers — Dev documentation

ROS 2 over Ethernet — Dev documentation

ArduPilot Network Interface — Copter documentation

Ethernet and TCP/IP in ArduPilotArduPilot Discourse

Helper Scripts