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Current revision P2 power consumption? — Parallax Forums

Current revision P2 power consumption?

Do we have a ball-park estimate on P2 power consumption in its current revision vs the P1 for applications such as a P2 based flight controller? Something on par with a Pixhawk, Pixhawk 2, etc.

The Cortex-M4F in the Pixhawk and Pixhawk 2 is capable of 252 MIPS. If a large commercial / research drone needs more than that for specific tasks, it can be connected to an on board or "companion" computer such as an RPi, Edison, Odroid, etc.

With the current Elev-8 flight controller based on the P1 utilizing 6 of 8 cogs and roughly 80% of the P1's processing power, there is potential here for an advanced P2 based flight controller with around 520 MIPS free to the drone operator for other in-flight tasks.
While not offering nearly as much processing power as an RPi class board, the resulting battery life savings from both decreased power consumption and weight when compared to using a Pixhawk + companion computer might be enough to gain widespread interest with a larger UAV audience.

Comments

  • cgraceycgracey Posts: 14,152
    The exposed-pad TQFP-100 package allows for 2W dissipation. That is for 160MHz 8-cog operation with lots of smart pins and streamers running. We won't know exactly what the power will be until we have silicon, though.
  • Thanks, so worst case scenario is 2W. I'll have to compare that to the others and see what the net savings would be.
  • jmgjmg Posts: 15,173
    DrPop wrote: »
    Do we have a ball-park estimate on P2 power consumption in its current revision vs the P1...
    P2 can run at a lower clock speed, to get the same work done, and the core is 1.8V vs 3.3v.
    Static Icc is higher, but this does not sound static Icc sensitive.
    DrPop wrote: »
    With the current Elev-8 flight controller based on the P1 utilizing 6 of 8 cogs and roughly 80% of the P1's processing power..

    Sounds like a good P2 benchmark.
    Has anyone looked at how that code ports to P2, and what P2 resource it needs ?
    P2 has interrupts and more powerful COGS, plus the smart-pins so hopefully the COG count can drop from 6 too ?

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