This GitBook provides the technical details of the NXP RDDRONE-UCANS32K1 famly of CAN-FD and CAN-SIC boards with UAVCAN protocol support, as well as reference software and examples.
Also take a look at some of our other Gitbooks:
(Main page)
- Ubuntu Linux Companion Computer with ROS2
- Six port CAN with T1 Ethernet
This GitBook is still a work in progress!
Note that the is the preferred board to use.
The (Secure) is more advanced and will require accessing secure documentation from NXP DocStore to take advantage of the capability of the CAN PHYs
See also the for questions and answers about all our mobile robotics reference designs. There is also .
What are the UCANS32K1 node boards?
UCANS32K146 and UCANS32K1SIC development boards are general purpose CAN node reference designs. They can be used for any purpose, however specific software has been provided for drones, rovers and other small (autonomous) vehicles. This software allows it to act as a bridge between a CAN bus (with ) and I2C, SPI, UART, GPIO or any other pin function of the (80 MHz ARM Cortex-M4F, ASIL-B compliant). This allows sensors, actuators and other peripherals to be controlled by other devices on the same CAN bus, such as the flight management unit reference design.
The relevant part numbers are:
KIT-UCANS32K1SIC (complete development kit with two UCANS32KSIC boards, a debugger and an adapter board - everything you need to get started!)
Use cases
Possible use cases are:
PWM output for motor controllers or servos
Relieves the FMU of creating RC-PWM signals
Can report information about the motors back to the FMU
Board specifications
(80 MHz ARM Cortex-M4F, ASIL-B compliant)
Dual
OR Dual NXP TJA1463 CAN-SIC transceivers (with dual )
More information is .
Hardware designs and example software
The hardware schematics and board layout for UCANS32K146 and . We encourage you to create your own designs based on our UCANS32K146 board!
We do not only provide hardware designs, there is also plenty of example software available. There are multiple options to use the UAVCAN protocol. We have also worked with the Apache NuttX and PX4 Autopilot communities to enable their open source software projects on the UCANS32K146.
Additional designs and example software might be made available in the future.
Contribute to this GitBook
We would really like to receive your feedback regarding this GitBook. It is synchronized to a , so you can just open an issue. If you want to contribute you can also open a pull request. The pages are written using an extended version of , so it should be pretty straightforward to add sections or even complete pages!
This work is licensed under a .
UCANS32K1SIC (a single UCANS32K146 board, CAN cable and termination network board)
(complete development kit with two UCANS32K146 boards, a debugger and an adapter board - everything you need to get started!)
(a single UCANS32K146 board, without additional debugger)
Battery management systems (also have a look at our !)
Report power consumption, state of charge, battery health and other faults to the FMU
GPS
Allows for more than one GPS to be connected to the FMU by communicating GPS info over CAN
Sensors
Airspeed/pressure sensors can report information to the FMU over CAN
And many more
Remote lights, arming/safety switches, and really any other peripheral which needs to communicate with the FMU can be connected to the UCANS32K146 development board.
with NFC interface (with external antenna, not included)
One (UCANK1S32K146) or Two (UCANS32KSIC) RC-PWM pin header with optional external power input
Through-hole solder pads (for 0.100" pin headers) that expose SPI, I2C and UART. Can also be remapped to other pin functions (GPIO, ADC, timer, ...)
5V power input; the board can be powered from the 4-pin JST-GH CAN connectors or the 2-pin power input header. There is an optional power input for the RC-PWM header as well specifically for 3 pin connected PWM devices such as high power RC servos.
