QuadSoftware
About
This page presents instructions and software for ISR Quadrotors. This vehicle includes a Pandaboard Computer that is not recommended to do heavy computing, and so it is only appropriate to run the ROS drivers for the hardware (motors and sensors). So the suggested architecture is to use an external laptop for the main software, connecting via Wi-Fi to the quadrotor. The driver nodes can be remotely launched using roslaunch.
Software
Prerequisites
ROS Fuerte with the following packages:
- laser_drivers
- mav_tools
- scan_tools
- hector_common
ROS Source Code
The source code can be found here: quad_ros.tar.gz.
Usage
Packages
- quad_drivers -- contains the main drivers (to run on Pandaboard)
- quad_launch -- contains some launch files to record the flights
Nodes
- imu_parser -- Reads data from IMU.
- quad_link -- Establish connection between vehicle and laptop.
- quad_status -- Reads some important data from vehicle.
Subscribed topics
- Under Construction
Published topics
- /scanCenter (sensor_msgs/LaserScan) -- Laser Range Finder measurements.
- /imu/data (sensor_msgs/Imu) -- IMU data.
- /quad_height/height_to_base (mav_msgs/Height) -- Height of quadrotor (in m).
- /quad_status/status (quad_status/Status) -- voltage (in V), RC status, Motors ON/OFF, ExternalCtrl ON/OFF and RunTime.