Hey everyone, I’m running into some trouble getting my Arducam camera working on a Jetson Orin NX with an Aetina carrier board. The standard drivers don’t seem to play nice with this third-party board — I think the device tree needs some modifications. Does anyone have the driver source code for the IMX477 so I can rebuild it for my setup? Any pointers would be appreciated.
Hi there — before I dig into the driver side, can you confirm the exact camera model you’re using? There are a few different Arducam variants out there, and it’ll help me point you to the right patch.
Sure thing. Here’s what I’m working with:
- Camera Model: UC 517 Rev01
- Camera: Arducam HQ Camera for Jetson Nano and Xavier NX, 12MP 1/2.3 Inch IMX477 with 6mm CS-Mount Lens
- Platform: NVIDIA Jetson Orin NX
- Carrier board: Aetina AIB-SO21/31 | AIB-SN31/41
- L4T version: 36.3.0
Basically this one: the IMX477 HQ camera module. I’m on the latest JetPack 6 / L4T 36.3.0 and the Aetina carrier board has a non-standard pinout compared to the dev kit, which is why the stock dtb isn’t cutting it.
Got it, thanks for the details. I’ve put together a patch for the IMX477 driver specifically targeting Jetson Orin NX on L4T 36.3.0. I’ve sent it over via private message — check your inbox.
The patch should handle the device tree changes needed for that Aetina carrier board. Apply it against the L4T 36.3.0 kernel source and rebuild. Let me know how it goes.
Applied the patch and rebuilt — 4K streaming at 30 fps is working now! That’s great, thanks for that.
One more thing though — the IMX477 sensor itself should be capable of 4K @ 60 fps, right? Is there a patch or a mode table tweak I can make to get 60 fps at 4K working on the Orin NX? The hardware should be able to handle it.
Good to hear 4K @ 30 fps is solid now!
As for 4K @ 60 fps — unfortunately that’s a no-go on the Jetson Orin NX with the IMX477. The bottleneck here isn’t the sensor; it’s the MIPI CSI interface bandwidth on the Jetson platform. At 4K @ 30 fps the CSI lanes are already saturated, so doubling the frame rate to 60 fps just isn’t feasible over that pipe — there’s no headroom left.
What you can do:
- For 4K: stick with the existing L4T 36.3.0 patch at 30 fps. That’s the ceiling.
- If 60 fps is a hard requirement, drop down to 1080p — the IMX477 supports 1080p @ 60 fps without issue.
So the tl;dr is: 4K maxes out at 30 fps on this setup, and 1080p is your path to 60 fps. Keep using the patch I sent over for the 4K30 configuration.