ROScopter

This repository contains the ROS packages associated with flying a multirotor on the ROSflight autopilot stack. The roscopter ROS package contains a high-level multirotor autopilot while the roscopter_sim package is used for simulation.

The roscopter autopilot has been built with reference to Dr. Randy Beard's Quadrotor Dynamics and Control notes, so as to allow anyone to easily understand, modify and use the code. The framework developed in the aforementioned reference closely resembles the fixed-wing framework developed in Small Unmanned Aircraft by Beard and McLain. This framework is inherently modular and extensively documented so as to aid the user in understanding and extending for personal use.

Getting Started

Once you have cloned this repo and the ROSflight_plugins repo into catkin_ws/src, you can run the Gazebo simulator with

$ catkin_make
$ source devel/setup.bash
$ roslaunch roscopter_sim multirotor.launch

Core Autopilot Components

MEKF

A Multiplicative Extended Kalman Filter (MEKF) is used for state estimation using ROSflight attitude estimates as measurements. See Derivation of the Relative Multiplicative Kalman Filter by David Wheeler and Daniel Koch for more information.

Controller

A PID controller is used.

Waypoint Manager

Velocity manager and commander.