Discussions

Hi,

I'd like to use ArduCopter with ROS, so I wanted to ask you guys if anyone else would be insterested as well. I've already successfully tested ROS on a BeagleBoard-xM with a Kinect sensor. BB-xM was able to process QQVGA pointclouds @15Hz, which should suffice to have some fun with it, of course processing speed strongly depends on the complexity of algorithms used. Naturally possibilities should grow if PandaBoard was used.

I'd be ready to contribute on the ROS-side. But I'd expect some one else to do the changes necessary to the APM. Needless to say, I suppose it would be great to integrate the possibility for external control in future ArduCopter builds, so ArduCopter expert-programmers needed.

Here is how I would see the functional requirements:

• transmission of selected state vector data from APM to ROS over UART (there is one free UART on the APM),
• transmission of speed measurements from ROS to the APM (to feed them to the DCM)
• transmission of estimated attitude measurements from ROS to APM, first just yaw aiding should suffice,
• possibility to control body frame velocities via ROS.

On the ArduCopter's side, everything could be configurable with build flags for the beginning.

Now, this is just a very rough plan, I'm open for criticism. If there are people over there interested in joining me, we'd figure out details as time progresses.

Any suggestions welcome, Tom.