Raspberry Pi Setup - Weber-State-UAV-Program/Documentation-2024-2025 GitHub Wiki

The companion computer used for this project is a Raspberry Pi Model 4B. It is running Ubuntu 22.04 Server. Setup of the operating system is as follows.

Requirements

  • Raspberry Pi 4B
  • microSD card (16GB+ recommended)
  • microSD card reader
  • Ubuntu Server 22.04 image for Raspberry Pi: https://ubuntu.com/download/raspberry-pi
  • Power supply, and optionally monitor/keyboard (for headless setup, not needed)
  • Ethernet cable or Wi-Fi access

Flash Ubuntu Server to SD Card

  1. Download the image file (ubuntu-22.04-server-arm64.img.xz)
  2. Use Raspberry Pi Imager or balenaEtcher to flash it to your microSD card
  3. Ensure that during setup, SSH and network are set up within the imager.

Boot

  1. Insert the microSD card into the Pi
  2. Connect Ethernet (recommended) or set up Wi-Fi beforehand
  3. Power on the Pi
  4. Wait ~1–2 minutes for it to boot

Find the IP Address

Find the Pi’s IP address:

  • Check your router’s connected devices
  • Find the IP address of the Raspberry Pi (e.g. 192.168.8.174)

SSH into the Raspberry Pi

   ssh [email protected]

Disable Bluetooth Overlay & Enable UARTs

   sudo nano /boot/firmware/config.txt

At the bottom of the file, add the following lines.

   enable_uart=1
   dtoverlay=disable-bt
   dtoverlay=uart5

Verify UART

Ensure that the UART has been enabled properly by running:

   ls -l /dev/serial*

Current PI Configuration

The above steps were used to set up the companion computer on the drone with the following configuration

  • Hostname: arg-drone-pi
  • Username: argdrone
  • Password: argdrone
  • IP Address (on base-station network, subject to change) : 192.168.8.174