Autonomous-Indoor-Drone

This repository aims at building a low cost drone which is capable of lifting package and pass through wireframes while avoiding obstacles. This was created as part of a competition conducted by Flipkart. Main idea was based on depth camera and normal RGB camera, stereo was also tested. Depth camera is used to avoid obstacles and RGB camera to get location of wireframe with help of VIO. This still requires a development and it's not yet complete.

Instructions to set up avoidance module with stereo camera

1.) Set up local planner and px4 firmware as mentioned at https://github.com/PX4/PX4-Avoidance#run-the-avoidance-gazebosimulation

2.) Copy Paste following files to location of firmware -

• 10031_aeroBITS, 10034_aeroBITS_stereo_camera from Simulator/config/ to Firmware/ROMFS/px4fmu_common/init.d-posix/

• aeroBITS, aeroBITS_stereo_camera from Simulator/models/aeroBITS to Firmware/Tools/sitl_gazebo/models/

• Copy meshes/aeroBITS_without_legs-stl.stl to Firmware/Tools/sitl_gazebo/models/rotors_description/meshes

Run - roslaunch px4 posix_sitl.launch vehicle:=aeroBITS_stereo_camera

This should launch aeroBITS model with stereo model in empty gazebo world.

3.) Change the value of argument model in launch file of avoidance package to aeroBITS_stereo_camera from iris_stereo_camera

4.) Following commands should launch local_planner and global_plannerrespectively

roslaunch local_planner local_planner_stereo.launch

roslaunch global_planner global_planner_stereo.launch

Instructions to test world with Gates

1.) Copy Following items to firmware as mentioned -

• 10031_aeroBITS, 10032_aeroBITS_stereo_camera from Simulator/config/ -> Firmware/ROMFS/px4fmu_common/init.d-posix/

• aeroBITS, aeroBITS_sensors from Simulator/models/aeroBITS to Firmware/Tools/sitl_gazebo/models/

• meshes/aeroBITS_without_legs-stl.stl to Firmware/Tools/sitl_gazebo/models/rotors_description/meshes

• launch/aeroBITS.launch to firmware/launch

• worlds/4_gates_3.world to firmware/Tools/sitl_gazebo/worlds/

Run roslaunch px4 posix_sitl.launch vehicle:=aeroBITS_sensors

This should launch aeroBITS model with FPV camera in empty gazebo world.

2.) Now, go to Simulator/scripts and run

python gate_detection.py

Three windows will open which detects gate

3.) Put aerobits folder in src of ROS workspace, default catkin_ws/src and build aerobits package

catkin build aerobits

Then finally simulation can be run,

roslaunch px4 aeroBITS.launch

rosrun aerobits offboard

Instructions for setting up obstacle avoidance with depth camera and HKUST fast planner

1.) Setup px4_fast_planner as mentioned at - https://github.com/mzahana/px4_fast_planner

2.) Copy Following items as mentioned -

• aeroBITS, aeroBITS_depth_camera_new and depth camera from models and paste it in Firmware/Tools/sitl_gazebo/models/

• Copy 10031_aeroBITS, 10035_aeroBITS_depth_camera_new from Simulator/config/ to Firmware/ROMFS/px4fmu_common/init.d-posix/

Now run - roslaunch px4 posix_sitl.launch vehicle:=aeroBITS_depth_camera_new

This should launch a aeroBITS model with depth camera in empty gazebo world.

3.) Following needs to be copied to run final simulation -

• grid3.world from Simulator/worlds/ to firmware/Tools/sitl_gazebo/worlds/

• simulator/launch/aeroBITS_depth_camera.launch and mavros_updated.launch to launch of px4_fast_planner package i.e., in my case catkin_ws/src/px4_fast_planner/launch/

• simulator/meshes/grid.stl to Firmware/Tools/sitl_gazebo/models/rotors_description/meshes

Run,

roslaunch px4_fast_planner aeroBITS_depth_camera.launch

Publishing message to goal will set target for the drone and it will try to reach that target while avoiding obstacles. Open a new terminal and enter following command to test -

rostopic pub /move_base_simple/goal geometry_msgs/PoseStamped '{header: {stamp: now, frame_id: "map"}, pose: {position: {x: 10.0, y: 10.0, z: 1.0}, orientation: {w: 1.0}}}'

QGroundControl

Drone in simulation for all cases can also be controlled with QGroundControl, also we can have direct fpv camera feed from drone in QgroundControl. Settings for the same is mentioned here -

1.) Click on Q icon in QGroundControl

2.) Select general in application setting

a) Video source - UDP h.264 Video Stream
b) UDP port 5600
c) Aspect Ratio 1.777777

3.) Select Autodelete files if space issues

Notes

1.) If launching local planner does not launch gazebo window check if in avoidance/avoidance_sitl_mavros.launch 'gui' is argument is set to true.

To Do -

1.) More detailed instructions on setting up Firmware

2.) Change names of stl file

3.) Instructions to launch world with more than 3 gates

4.) Update Camera position on drone- some issues

5.) Make readme clean

6.) Scripts instructions

7.) Script for automating copy pasting

8.) Improving code for navigation through gates

9.) Switching between fast planner to avoid collisions

10.) Adding simulations for static and aerodynamic analysis of drone

11.) Hardware and inclusion of VIO properly

References

• px4-fast-planner

• Obstacle Detection and Avoidance