A small guide to setting up and running this project. More detailed information can be found in the SML_GUIDE directory in this project.

Follow the official instructions for ROS Indigo. After configuring the Ubuntu repositories and keys, this includes installing the full desktop install via

sudo apt-get install ros-indigo-desktop-full

(This might download more than 1GB of packages.)

Then initialize rosdep

sudo rosdep init
rosdep update

Make sure the ROS environment variables are set when bash-terminals are launched. To do this, add source /opt/ros/indigo/setup.bash to the file .bashrc. You can do this, by executing

echo "source /opt/ros/indigo/setup.bash" >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc

in a terminal window.

The installation of rosinstall (package python-rosinstall) is not required.

(For more detailed instructions see the official ROS tutorial.) Create a new folder and make sure it contains a folder named src. Make sure this src directory is in the ROS_PACKAGE_PATH variable. You can check this with echo $ROS_PACKAGE_PATH. If the directory is missing (which is likely), add the line

export ROS_PACKAGE_PATH=~/[your ros workspace]/src:${ROS_PACKAGE_PATH}

to the file ~/.bashrc. For this to take effect, you should close and reopen the terminal or type source ~/.bashrc.

To clone the project files from GitHub, start a terminal window and navigate to the src folder. Now run the following command (including the dot at the end!):

git clone --recursive https://github.com/antonioadaldo/quadcoptersSML.git .

to obtain the relevant files. The --recursive option makes sure that the mavros packages are downloaded as a submodule. If you have received this project as an archive, copy the relevant subfolders (currently quad_control, gui and possibly mavros) into the src folder. Now you can initialize the ROS workspace by running catkin_init_workspace (within the src folder). If mavros is not included, create a folder and get the files from https://github.com/mavlink/mavros.

You should only have one mavros installation in your ROS path, i.e. you should not have mavros installed in another workspace or from the Ubuntu repositories (the mavros version that is currently available there is too old).

To make sure that mavros can access your USB port, you might need to add your user to the group dialout by executing sudo usermod -a -G dialout $USER. (You might need to log out out and log in againt for this to take effect.) Futhermore you need to install the control toolbox, which is required by mavros, by running the command sudo apt-get install ros-indigo-control-toolbox in a terminal. You also have to install MAVLink, NumPy and SciPy if they are not already installed (use sudo apt-get install ros-indigo-mavlink python-numpy python-scipy).

Run catkin_make from the workspace root (the folder containing the src folder).

In two terminal windows (both in the workspace root), run

source ./devel/setup.bash
roslaunch quad_control iris1.launch

and

source ./devel/setup.bash
rqt --standalone  tabbedGUI --args Iris1/

If you want to connect to an actual quadcopter, run the following commands (the GUI is also started by the launch file):

source ./devel/setup.bash
roslaunch quad_control single_quad_mavros.launch

To start the controller for two quads, run:

source ./devel/setup.bash
roslaunch quad_control dual_quad_mavros.launch

Startup procedure for quadcopter controlled with ROS:

• Start ROS with mavros as described above.
• Plug in the battery of the quadcopter.
• Select and set a trajectory.
• Press "Min Throttle".
• Press the safety button on the quadcopter to activate the motors, then arm the quad.
• Select and set a controller (it uses the currently set trajectory).

Only if needed:

To uninstall ROS and remove all configuration files, execute the following commands

sudo apt-get purge ros-indigo*
sudo apt-get purge python-rosdep python-rospkg python-rosinstall
sudo apt-get autoremove

and remove all lines concerning ROS from ~/.bashrc.