Difficult to know if sensor is healthy when using I2C

[rmackay9]

I'm one of the lead developers of ArduPilot (www.ardupilot.org) which I think is the most widely used open source drone software and we use a modified version of the Pixy for "precision landing". http://ardupilot.org/copter/docs/precision-landing-with-irlock.html.

We only support the I2C interface at the moment, but one issue we have is that no I2C messages are available if there is no object visible. This makes it difficult for us to know if the sensor is healthy or not. For example, we can't tell the difference between whether the sensor is disconnected vs attached but no objects are visible.

I'll pass this on to Thomas Stone who is responsible for the IRLock sensor as well.

[rmackay9]

Nevermind, I've read the wiki a bit more and can see that it returns all zeros to the I2C request if it's operating but not seeing a target.

By the way, here are some flight tests with the IRLock for "precision landing" and "precision loiter":
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CL4XxFhQEEk&t=67s
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoLZpSZDfII