Drone tutorial

This tutorial aims to provide guides on building a drone from kits and ending at controlling drones in experiments.

Main contents

1 Simulation

1.1 Simulation for a single quadrotor with PX4 and Ardupilot in ROS

It explains how to install and configure PX4 or Ardupilot, ROS and ROS packages for ROS-Gazebo simulation.

• Single drone with PX4

  • Set up PX4, ROS and mavros shows how to simulate a single quadrotor with the PX4 firmware in Gazebo.
  • Run controller in ROS-Gazebo simulation for PX4 demonstrates how to use a controller in ROS to controller a single quadrotor with the PX4 firmware in Gazebo.

• Single drone with Ardupilot

  • Set up Ardupilot, ROS and mavros explains the steps to simulate a single quadrotor with the Ardupilot firmware in Gazebo.
  • [Run controller in ROS-Gazebo simulation for Ardupilot] ##TODO

1.2 Simulation for multiple quadrotors with PX4 and Ardupilot in ROS ##TODO

• Multiple drones with PX4
• Multiple drones with Ardupilot

2 Experiment preparation

2.1 Assembly drones

1. Build Holybro X500 kit
2. Build TransTEC Lightning X Lite with Kakute
   • Ardupilot
   • Chassis TransTEC Lightning X Lite
   • Motor FPV 致盈EX2306 PLUS site in Taobao
   • ESC:
     • Tekko32 F4 Metal 4in1 65A ESC (65A)
     • HAKRC 3260A ESC BLHeli-32
   • Autopilot: - Kakute H7 v1.3 site in Taobo
3. Build TransTEC Lightning X Lite with Aocoda
   • BetaFlight
   • Chassis TransTEC Lightning X Lite
   • Motor FPV 致盈EX2306 PLUS site in Taobao
   • ESC: Aocoda 60A 4 in 1 site in Taobao
   • Autopilot: - Aocoda RC H743 site in Taobo

2.2 Configure and tune autopilot for manual flight

1. PX4
2. Ardupilot
3. Betaflight

2.3 Onboard computer setup

It demonstrates steps to add an onboard computer to a drone. It includes how to power it within the power system of Pixhawk and how to enable ROS communication among it, Pixhawk and base station.

1. Set up onboard computer
   • Set up Raspberry Pi as onboard computer
2. Enable communication between onboad computer and autopilot
   • Set up communication between Pi and Pixhawk with PX4
3. Enable communication between onboad computer and base station in ROS through WIFI
   • Set up ROS communcation between onboard computer and base station through WIFI

3 Drone controllers

1. Use mavros_controller It explains how the drone control package mavros_controller is designed and what to do to implement it in experiment.

4 Experiment in cases

4.1 Indoor flights with VIcon

1. Set up and use Vicon system It gives an idea of how to use a motion capture system for drone experiments.

4.2 Add functional payloads and sensors

1. Add more devices to drone in experiment It suggests what to do if more additional devices are to be added to a drone to extend its functions.

5 ROS2 for drones

1. ROS2 and PX4 It aims to move every drone techniques in ROS to ROS2.