Robohub.org
 

Fifty planes in the air running ROS & Gazebo

by
23 September 2015



share this:

ARSENL50The Advanced Robotic Systems Engineering Lab at the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, CA recently flew fifty small autonomous planes together using ROS.

Each plane – a styrofoam wing with a 56” wingspan – was equipped with a Pixhawk autopilot running a modified version of the open-source Ardupilot firmware and an ODroid u3 “payload” computer running ROS Indigo. The payload used autopilot_bridge (similar to mavros) to bridge between serial communications with the autopilot and ROS messages and services. A network node bridged ROS communications with a lightweight UDP-based protocol that allowed aircraft to share their pose and status with one another and to receive commands from the ground.

Also residing on the payload was a set of controller nodes that could “drive” the plane by sending updated target latitude-longitude-altitude commands to the autopilot. Controllers were individually activated by a state machine, based on commands from the ground. The controller used during the fifty-plane flight was a follower controller. A single ground operator commanded two sets of 25 planes each to configure themselves into leader-follower formations; planes would determine a leader based on highest altitude (which was deconflicted at the start of the flight). The leader would then proceed along a predefined racetrack, and all followers, listening to the broadcast position of the leader, would track its path while remaining at their designated altitudes.

https://youtu.be/-zKDdAw609Y

A detailed writeup of the flight test is posted at DIY Drones and more information on the research project can be found at the ARSENL website.



tags: , , ,


Open Source Robotics Foundation supports the development, distribution, and adoption of open source software for use in robotics research, education, and product development.
Open Source Robotics Foundation supports the development, distribution, and adoption of open source software for use in robotics research, education, and product development.





Related posts :



Robot Talk Episode 100 – Mini Rai

In the latest episode of the Robot Talk podcast, Claire chatted to Mini Rai from Orbit Rise about orbital and planetary robots.
29 November 2024, by

Robot Talk Episode 99 – Joe Wolfel

In the latest episode of the Robot Talk podcast, Claire chatted to Joe Wolfel from Terradepth about autonomous submersible robots for collecting ocean data.
22 November 2024, by

Robot Talk Episode 98 – Gabriella Pizzuto

In the latest episode of the Robot Talk podcast, Claire chatted to Gabriella Pizzuto from the University of Liverpool about intelligent robotic manipulators for laboratory automation.
15 November 2024, by

Online hands-on science communication training – sign up here!

Find out how to communicate about your work with experts from Robohub, AIhub, and IEEE Spectrum.
13 November 2024, by

Robot Talk Episode 97 – Pratap Tokekar

In the latest episode of the Robot Talk podcast, Claire chatted to Pratap Tokekar from the University of Maryland about how teams of robots with different capabilities can work together.
08 November 2024, by

Robot Talk Episode 96 – Maria Elena Giannaccini

In the latest episode of the Robot Talk podcast, Claire chatted to Maria Elena Giannaccini from the University of Aberdeen about soft and bioinspired robotics for healthcare and beyond.
01 November 2024, by





Robohub is supported by:




Would you like to learn how to tell impactful stories about your robot or AI system?


scicomm
training the next generation of science communicators in robotics & AI


©2024 - Association for the Understanding of Artificial Intelligence


 












©2021 - ROBOTS Association