Work with AR Parrot 2 using ROS¶

In this tutorial you will learn how to work with AR Parrot 2 using in ROS.

Note

This tutorial tested on ROS indigo under Ubuntu 14.04 LTS.

Note

Learn ROS and get your ROS certificate by enrolling in the Udemy course (Highest Rated course): ROS for Beginners: Basics, Motion and OpenCV.

Learn ROS-Navigation and get your ROS-Navigation certificate by enrolling in the Udemy course (Highest Rated course): ROS for Beginners II: Localization, Navigation and SLAM.

Learn about ROS2: ROS Next Generation by enrolling in the Udemy course ROS2 How To: Discover Next Generation ROS

Required Packages¶

Install and compile following package:

ardrone_autonomy is the ROS driver for Parrot ARDrone 1.0 and 2.0.

Working with real drone¶

Create new package (e.g. drone_application)

catkin_create_pkg drone_application std_msgs rospy roscpp

create a launch file (e.g: launch_drone.launch) and paste following lines:

<launch>
        <arg name="droneip" default="192.168.1.1" />
        <node name="ardrone_driver" pkg="ardrone_autonomy" type="ardrone_driver" output="screen" args="-ip $(arg droneip)">
                <param name="navdata_demo" value="False" />
                <param name="realtime_navdata" value="True" />
                <param name="realtime_video" value="True" />
                <param name="looprate" value="30" />
        </node>
</launch>

Now launch the robot, in terminal:

roslaunch drone_application launch_drone.launch

This message will appear if it works fine

[ INFO] [1456020168.671768680]: Successfully connected to 'My ARDrone' (AR-Drone 2.0 - Firmware: 2.4.8) - Battery(%): 85

You can view the robot camera using following command:

rosrun image_view image_view image:=/ardrone/image_raw

In new terminal you can control the robot by sending messages through topics, for example:

To takeoff:

rostopic pub -1 ardrone/takeoff std_msgs/Empty

To land:

rostopic pub -1 ardrone/land std_msgs/Empty

Control the robot from your code in python¶

To write simple code to takeoff, create your .py file (e.g: takeoff.py) and paste following code:

#!/usr/bin/env python
import rospy
from std_msgs.msg import String
from std_msgs.msg import Empty

def takeoff():
        pub = rospy.Publisher("ardrone/takeoff", Empty, queue_size=10 )
        rospy.init_node('takeoff', anonymous=True)
        rate = rospy.Rate(10) # 10hz
        while not rospy.is_shutdown():
          pub.publish(Empty())
          rate.sleep()

if __name__ == '__main__':
        try:
          takeoff()
        except rospy.ROSInterruptException:
          pass

Launch the drone

roslaunch drone_application launch_drone.launch

Run you code in new terminal:

rosrun drone_application takeoff.py

Control the robot using tum_ardrone package¶

Create a launch file (e.g: launch_tum_drone.launch) and paste following lines:

<launch>

        <arg name="droneip" default="192.168.1.1" />
        <node name="ardrone_driver" pkg="ardrone_autonomy" type="ardrone_driver" output="screen" args="-ip $(arg droneip)">
                <param name="navdata_demo" value="False" />
                <param name="realtime_navdata" value="True" />
                <param name="realtime_video" value="True" />
                <param name="looprate" value="30" />
        </node>

        <node name="drone_stateestimation" pkg="tum_ardrone" type="drone_stateestimation">
        </node>
        <node name="drone_autopilot" pkg="tum_ardrone" type="drone_autopilot">
        </node>
        <node name="drone_gui" pkg="tum_ardrone" type="drone_gui">
        </node>

</launch>

In terminal:

roslaunch drone_application tum_drone.launch

It is straightforward using tum_ardrone_GUI to command the robot

Note

For more information you can visit AR.Drone ROS Documentation , ROS Driver for AR.Drone and Up and flying with the AR.Drone and ROS: Getting started