Camera and Payloads

Cameras and payload devices sit on top of the core flight stack and companion-computer foundation.

Typical roles

Payload-side hardware may include:

• RGB cameras
• mission-specific sensors
• perception sensors
• future onboard inference inputs

Why this matters

Payload hardware affects:

• compute requirements
• power draw
• mounting and enclosure constraints
• network bandwidth and storage needs

Relationship to companion computer choice

Payload complexity is one of the reasons to support more than one companion-computer path.

A basic camera workflow may be fine on a lighter compute budget.

A heavier perception workflow is one of the reasons the Jetson path is being added.