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Ros-independent Gazebo plugin for Ardupilot's SITL.

Hey, guys.

I've been working with my team in a Gazebo plugin for Ardupilot's SITL that does not depend on ROS. Basically, the plugin tracks a target present in the World and sends a waypoint to the SITL simulator based on the position of the target, while continuously updating the pose of the model to which it is attached according to the pose of the aircraft being simulated on SITL.

The plugin uses several Gazebo API's routines and communicates with Ardupilot's SITL through Mavlink, but it's still straightforward enough to be used as reference for Gazebo/Mavlink beginners, or as a base for more elaborated plugins.

My question is if there's interest of the community to have this plugin integrated as part of the set of pre-existing Gazebo plugins. And, if so, which steps should be taken to integrate it.

Thanks.

[Figure: The plugin is attatched to the quadrotor, causing it to follow the gray sphere.] image description

Asked by guiccbr on 2016-05-05 13:24:17 UTC

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Answers

First off, this sounds like an awesome plugin/set of plugins. The process of adding a new plugin to gazebo is pretty straightforward. Make a pull request the the OSRF/gazebo repository adding the plugins. You'll want to add the plugin code, a world file for testing, and probably models to the model repository.

Another thing to consider is do you need any extra libraries for this to work? You mention some Mavlink and arduipilot things, which I know nothing about, but may make this trickier. However, if it only relies on gazebo and all of it's API's then you're fine.

Opening an Issue on the OSRF/gazebo repo would be a better place to discuss this.

Asked by Peter Mitrano on 2016-06-13 15:27:28 UTC

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Hi, Peter, thanks for your answer.

Since we indeed need some extra libraries for this plugin, we have decided to make it available separately on github: https://github.com/01org/gazebo-sitl.

Everyone is welcome to test and contribute with it. Also every feedback will be greatly appreciated.

Asked by guiccbr on 2016-06-14 09:09:35 UTC