General Information 🌍

This repository contains an example of a ROS 2 node which communicate with a drone using PX4 and ROS 2. Communication via uXRCE-DDS (PX4 version 1.14.0).

The repository contains launch file which launch:

1. Gazebo simulation (headless / gui options available).
2. A PX4 instans which control the simulated drone.
3. DDS agent for ROS 2 - PX4 communication.
4. An Offboard node which sends setpoints for the control system.

Installation 🛫

Clone the repository from Github:

            https://github.com/citros-garden/drone.git

Then open the repository in VSCode's devcontainer with reopen in container option. The Dockerfile contains all the necessary dependencies for the project, and the install script will clone PX4-Autopilot and build the firmware, along with building ROS 2 workspace.

Pre-defined VSCode Tasks 📝

This repository contains pre-defined VSCode tasks which are helpful for building and running the example. They can be run by typing ctrl+p. In the drop-down menu type task (space after task) and you should see them appear.

The following tasks are available:

1. build - building the ROS 2 workspace
2. launch - launch the simulation in headless mode.
3. launch-gui - launch the simulation in GUI mode.

Note: The launch and launch-gui commands are depend on the build, so when you launch with task, a build task will run before launch.

Manually Build 🚜

Build and source the ROS 2 workspace with:

    cd ros2_ws
    colcon build
    source install/local_setup.bash

Manually Run 🚀

Run a headless simulation:

            ros2 launch px4_offboard offboard_position_control.launch.py headless:=True

Run a GUI simulation:

            ros2 launch px4_offboard offboard_position_control.launch.py headless:=False

Develop 💡

Currently, the px4_offboard package contains a node which sends rectangular waypoints to the drone. The 4 waypoints are located in the package's parameters.

XRCE-DDS Modification

• By default, XRCE-DDS comes with non-ROS 2 default QOS profile. In order to subscribe to the PX4 topics, both in the offboard node and the ROS 2 bag, we changed the XRCE-DDS QOS profile before compiling the PX4 firmware.

• Some PX4 topics has been removed from the dds_topics.yaml

Foxglove Visualization 👀

Related Projects

1. PX4-Autopilot
2. px4_offboard
3. XRCE-DDS