Welcome to the repository, In the below lines we have tried to give a detailed instruction set on how the drone simulation in Gazebo9 using Robotic Operating System (ROS) happens.
Quadcopter simulation in ROS
The follwoing steps will help you to develop the project starting in a basic windows machine :
- Firstly if you are windows user dual boot your machine to Ubuntu Linux 18.04. (Do not use WSL or Virtual Machine as simulation requires a lot of power which cannot be provided by them).
- Understand basic linux commands (ls,cd,mkdir etc.)
- Developing the newly linux machine with some tools so that it functions better.
Updating & Upgrading Ubuntu
sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get upgrade
Solving Time Issue After Dual Boot
timedatectl set-local-rtc 1 --adjust-system-clock
Install Terminator
sudo add-apt-repository ppa:gnome-terminator
sudo apt-get install terminator
Install Sublime Text
wget -qO - https://download.sublimetext.com/sublimehq-pub.gpg | sudo apt-key add -
echo "deb https://download.sublimetext.com/ apt/stable/" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/sublime-text.list
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install sublime-text
subl
Important Linux Packages
sudo apt-get install libavcodec-dev libsdl1.2-dev xsltproc libbullet-dev libsdl1.2-dev libgoogle-glog-dev protobuf-compiler python-wstool
Install Gazebo 9
sudo apt-get install gazebo9 libgazebo9-*
Install Arduino IDE
Open up a terminal in arduino folder and then type this command
sudo ./install.sh
Install GIT
sudo apt-get install git
Downloading ROS melodic version and setup your catkin workspace. Copy paste below commands in your linux terminal to develop that.
Setup your sources.list
sudo sh -c 'echo "deb http://packages.ros.org/ros/ubuntu $(lsb_release -sc) main" > /
Set up your keys
sudo apt-key adv --keyserver 'hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com:80' --recv-key C1CF6E31E6BAD
Update packages and install ROS
sudo apt update
sudo apt install ros-melodic-desktop-full
Setup the environment
echo "source /opt/ros/melodic/setup.bash" >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc
Dependencies
sudo apt install python-rosdep python-rosinstall python-rosinstall-generator python-w
Rosdep
sudo apt install python-rosdep
sudo rosdep init
rosdep update
Creating a catkin workspace
mkdir catkin_ws
cd catkin_ws
mkdir -p src
cd src
catkin_init_workspace
printf "source ~/catkin_ws/devel/setup.bash" >> ~/.bashrc
cd ~/catkin_ws
catkin_make
source ~/catkin_ws/devel/setup.bash
Checking If the thing is correctly installed.
rosversion -d
gazebo -v
Now with the above steps the Ubuntu machine is ready with ROS installed for simulations. We will proceed by installing Ardupilot and MAVProxy
Installing Ardupilot and MAVProxy
Clone ArduPilot
In home directory:
cd ~
sudo apt install git
git clone https://github.com/ArduPilot/ardupilot.git
cd ardupilot
git checkout Copter-3.6
git submodule update --init --recursive
Install dependencies:
sudo apt install python-matplotlib python-serial python-wxgtk3.0 python-wxtools python-lxml python-scipy python-opencv ccache gawk python-pip python-pexpect
Use pip (Python package installer) to install mavproxy:
sudo pip install future pymavlink MAVProxy
Open ~/.bashrc for editing:
gedit ~/.bashrc
Add these lines to end of ~/.bashrc (the file open in the text editor):
export PATH=$PATH:$HOME/ardupilot/Tools/autotest
export PATH=/usr/lib/ccache:$PATH
Save and close the text editor.
Reload ~/.bashrc:
. ~/.bashrc
Run SITL (Software In The Loop) once to set params:
cd ~/ardupilot/ArduCopter
sim_vehicle.py -w
Intalling QGroundControl which provides full flight control and vehicle setup for ardupilot powered vehicles
Installing QGroundControl for Ubuntu Linux 18.04 LTS :
Add current user accout to dialout group and remove modemmanager
sudo usermod -a -G dialout $USER
sudo apt-get remove modemmanager
Download QGroundControl.AppImage
wget https://s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/qgroundcontrol/latest/QGroundControl.AppImage
Change permissions and run
chmod +x ./QGroundControl.AppImage
./QGroundControl.AppImage (or double click)
Run SITL and connect with Q Ground
cd ~/ardupilot/ArduCopter/
sim_vehicle.py
Dependencies installation
Install mavros and mavlink from source:
cd ~/catkin_ws
wstool init ~/catkin_ws/src
rosinstall_generator --upstream mavros | tee /tmp/mavros.rosinstall
rosinstall_generator mavlink | tee -a /tmp/mavros.rosinstall
wstool merge -t src /tmp/mavros.rosinstall
wstool update -t src
rosdep install --from-paths src --ignore-src --rosdistro `echo $ROS_DISTRO` -y
catkin build Add a line to end of ~/.bashrc by running the following command:
echo "source ~/catkin_ws/devel/setup.bash" >> ~/.bashrc
update global variables
source ~/.bashrc
install geographiclib dependancy
sudo ~/catkin_ws/src/mavros/mavros/scripts/install_geographiclib_datasets.sh
GroundController
Mission Planning through python code in 2D
Install the mono file which will help us to run few windows applications in linux
sudo pip install mono
Now go to this website and download the version 1.3.33 which gets saved in downloads and unzip it.
//firmware.us.ardupilot.org/Tools/MissionPlanner/archive/
On addition to this get these installed as well
sudo pip install mavproxy
sudo pip install pymavlink==2.4.8
Now open a terminal and run :
dronekit-sitl copter
In another terminal run
mavproxy.py --master tcp:127.0.0.1:5760 --sitl 127.0.0.1:5501 --out 127.0.0.1:14549 --out 127.0.0.1:14450
Now cd to the location where you have unzipped the downloaded file and write this cmd in the third terminal
sudo mono MissionPlanner.exe
Now cd to the location where this move.py file got downloaded and run this cmd in the 4th terminal.
python controller.py
Wait for sometime the python file first gets executed in the terminal and then in the GroundController tab.
Now The procedure to download the necessary plugins for autonomous drone simulation in arduipilot
Install Gazebo plugin for APM (ArduPilot Master) :
cd ~
git clone https://github.com/khancyr/ardupilot_gazebo.git
cd ardupilot_gazebo
Ubuntu 18.04 only checkout dev
git checkout dev
build and install plugin
mkdir build
cd build
cmake ..
make -j4
sudo make install
echo 'source /usr/share/gazebo/setup.sh' >> ~/.bashrc
Set paths for models:
echo 'export GAZEBO_MODEL_PATH=~/ardupilot_gazebo/models' >> ~/.bashrc
. ~/.bashrc
NOw you are all set to simulate the drone we have added two python files in this repo one is the waypoint.py and another is the move.py . The move.py has pre defined waypoints and the quadcopter follows the direction while the waypoint.py asks the user to enter the desired no. of waypoints as well as their values.
Run Simulator
NOTE the iris_arducopter_runway is not currently working in gazebo11. The iq_sim worlds DO work
In one Terminal (Terminal 1), run Gazebo:
gazebo --verbose ~/ardupilot_gazebo/worlds/iris_arducopter_runway.world
In another Terminal (Terminal 2), run SITL:
cd ~/ardupilot/ArduCopter/
sim_vehicle.py -v ArduCopter -f gazebo-iris --console
Fly drone through this command in another yerminal with this the drone will follow the waypoints as instructed in this mov.py code.
python mov.py
Or you can fly drone through this command in another yerminal with this the drone will follow the waypoints as instructed in this waypoints.py code.
python waypoints.py
The detailed documentation of process of writting this python file is available at http://dronekit.io/
Thanks :)