PX4 Software-In-The-Loop Simulation with Ignition Gazebo

This post is written by Jaeyoung Lim Ignition Gazebo has been integrated into the PX4 simulation framework: To run this example, simply run the following command in the root of the PX4-Autopilot repository The repository can be found in https://github.com/Auterion/px4-simulation-ignition Installation instructions can be found in: http://docs.px4.io/master/en/simulation/ignition_gazebo.html#ignition-gazebo-simulation This has been presented in the PX4 Dev…

PX4 Software-In-The-Loop simulation with JSBSim

This post is written by Jaeyoung Lim JSBSim is a open source flight simulator (“flight dynamics model (FDM)”) that runs on Microsoft Windows, Apple Macintosh, Linux, IRIX, Cygwin (Unix on Windows), etc. Its features include: fully configurable aerodynamics and a propulsion system that can model complex flight dynamics of an aircraft. Rotational earth effects are…

Simulating Multiple Vehicles in PX4 SITL Gazebo

Jaeyoung Lim Previously, it was only possible to simulate multiple vehicles in SITL by extending ROS launchfiles. However, this is not scalable especially when you are trying simulate large number of vehicles or change the number of vehicles a lot. Now you can simulate multiple vehicles in PX4 SITL gazebo, without depending on ROS. Simply…

Offboard gimbal control using MAVROS for object tracking

Jaeyoung Lim Controlling a gimbal for object tracking is one of the essential functionalities for flying camera applications. A mount plugin was implemented in mavros to enable continuous control of gimbals from the companion computer. The following video shows the gimbal controlled in order to look at a single ROI while following around a trajectory…

Aggressive trajectory tracking controller for MAVROS using geometric control in SE(3)

Jaeyoung Lim As PX4 doesn’t support aggressive trajectory tracking capabilities just yet, a trajectory tracking controller is needed to run aggressive flights. MAVROS enables you to control a drone offboard, supporting low level commands such as actuator control / bodyrate control. This gives you the safety of having a fail-safe flight controller and the flexibility…

ROSPPM: ROS Package for Accessing RC Transmitters

Jaeyoung Lim Introduction RC Transmitters are used to control miniature cars and planes for a long time. Although the technology has evolved quite a long way, RC transmitters are still the most reliable way to gain control of a UAV for long distances. RC Transmitters are very simple to use and works in very long…

External Position Control of a Quadrotor Using USB2PPM

Jaeyoung Lim Overview A USB2PPM interface was developed which enables a PC to interact directly with the RC transmitter trainer port. External Position Control was successfully demonstrated to show that the computer can successfully control real-time applications using the USB2PPM controller. This can be used for sending simple data in long distances (~2km) in a…

Non-Symmetric Non-Planar Quadrotor

This project started out as an experiment. The idea was that standard flight controllers should be able to control non-planar shaped quadrotors as long as the control board is mounted near the center of gravity. I decided to try the idea out. The project addresses the symmteric / non-symmetric forms of non-planar motor layouts. Basic…

APM Quadcopter Autonomous Flight

I and my friend Jaeyoung tested GPS Autonomous flight mode of APM with two quadcopters which embed APM boards.

One embed APM 2.6 board and another embed Pixhawk board. Both uses ArduCopter firmware. A mission of Auto-flight is taking off from launch site – moving to waypoint – hovering for 2 minutes – returning to launch site.