Meet the Contributor
Questions
What company do you work for and what’s your “day role”?
I work for NXP Semiconductors in the CTO Systems Innovations team. Where I’m currently working on a research to improve functional safety for drones. Furthermore I’m also working various products for our mobile robotics team.
What is your current project based on PX4?
My current project based on PX4 is to implement UAVCAN v1 (DS-015) on our S32K-based products (UCANS32K146, BMS-772) which will act as a reference implementation for people who want to use DS-015 in their drones.
What is your professional and educational background?
Last year I finished my “Embedded Systems” master degree at the Eindhoven University of Technology, during my MSc thesis I worked at NXP on a “Distributed Safety Mechanism” to improve functional safety of an autonomous vehicle. Before that during my study I worked at Kverneland on CAN bus diagnostics and virtualization. And I’ve worked at Bosch on localization using audible sound
What is your “area of expertise” within PX4?
I’m very familiar with the NuttX operating system which is used by PX4 as its underlying operating system. Furthermore I’ve worked with almost all low-level interfaces used by the Pixhawk such as UART, SPI, I2C, PWM, CAN and Ethernet and the Middleware such as RTPS/DDS (used in ROS2) and UAVCAN
What is the most unique thing you have done in drones/robotics?
For a personal hobby project I’m working on a board that integrates the LEGO Powered Up system into ROS2, to create a autonomous drone using LEGO toys and LEGO motors.
What is your current favourite setup for development kit?
For software development I’m using S32 Design studio for S32K related work for other projects I use VSCode, For Hardware I’m using the NXP Hovergames drone and some of our S32K based boards for debugging I’m using the J-Link probe.
Do you have a “remote” work setup?
I’m still having a powerful desktop at home with a big main screen and a 2nd screen in portrait mode, for my remote work setup I’m using a KVM switch to hookup the company notebook and switch between the machines when necessary. Furthermore I’ve got a 2nd desk containing my test setup, bench power supply, analog discovery I’m using as a digital scope and my Hovergames drone.
What languages do you speak?
My mother tongue is Dutch and I also speak English and German (My German is quite basic, would love to improve it)
Where are you from and where did you grow up?
I’m from the Netherlands, where I grew up in a small town called Beesd.
What advice would you give to fellow drone developers who just joined the PX4 community?
As a start I would advise to join the PX4 slack community, you can find a lot of information and ask questions. Next I would suggest starting with the “Getting Started” guide on dev.px4.io.
Check out Peter’s presentation at PX4 Developer Summit | Virtual 2020 on “Getting started using UAVCAN v1 with PX4 on the NXP UAVCAN Board”