Barometer

Barometers

Barometers measure atmospheric pressure, and are used in drones as altitude sensors.

Most flight controllers on which PX4 runs include a barometer. By default PX4 will select the barometer with the highest priority (if any are present), and configure it as a data source for Height estimation. If a sensor fault is detected, PX4 will fall back to the next highest priority sensor.

Generally barometers require no user configuration (or thought)!

Hardware Options

Pixhawk standard flight controllers include a barometer, as do many others.

They are also present in other hardware:

• CUAV NEO 3 Pro GNSS module (MS5611)
• RaccoonLab L1 GNSS NEO-M8N

At time of writing, drivers/parts include: bmp280, bmp388 (and BMP380), dps310, goertek (spl06), invensense (icp10100, icp10111, icp101xx, icp201xx), lps22hb, lps25h, lps33hw, maiertek (mpc2520), mpl3115a2, ms5611, ms5837, tcbp001ta.

Note that the supported barometer part numbers can be inferred from the driver names listed in the Modules Reference: Baro (Driver) documentation (and the driver source: PX4-Autopilot/src/drivers/barometer).

PX4 Configuration

Generally barometers require no user configuration. If needed, you can:

• Enable/Disable barometers as data source for Height estimation using the EKF2_BARO_CTRL parameter.
• Change the selection order of barometers using the CAL_BAROx_PRIO parameters for each barometer.
• Disable a barometer by setting its CAL_BAROx_PRIO value to 0.

Calibration

Barometers don't require calibration.

Developer Information

• Baro driver source code
• Modules Reference: Baro (Driver) documentation.