Gazebo SITL Plugin

A ROS-independent Gazebo plugin for Ardupilot's SITL.

Requirements

* Gazebo (tested with Gazebo8)
* Python 2.7+ (to generate mavlink headers)
* MavProxy (https://github.com/ArduPilot/MAVProxy)
* Ardupilot (https://github.com/ArduPilot/ardupilot)

Build and Install

1. Make sure you have initialized and updated the Mavlink submodule at least once with:

   git submodule update --init --recursive
   

2. Create a build folder, make and install using CMAKE as follows:

   mkdir build
   cd build
   cmake ..
   sudo make install
   cd -
   

3. Download Gazebo models if necessary:

   Gazebo automatically searches and downloads models referenced in the .world file that are not already present into GAZEBO_MODEL_PATH. However, in some cases the download might take a long time for no apparent reason. Download the Quadrotor model manually with:

   curl http://models.gazebosim.org/quadrotor/model.tar.gz | tar xvz -C GAZEBO_MODEL_PATH
   

Run

1. Open a second terminal and run Ardupilot:

   ${ARDUPILOTDIR}/build/sitl/bin/arducopter --model x --defaults ${ARDUPILOTDIR}/Tools/autotest/default_params/copter.parm
   

2. In a third terminal, run Mavproxy:

   mavproxy.py --master tcp:127.0.0.1:5760 --out udp:127.0.0.1:15556
   

3. Open the Gazebo gzsitl_drone_target world file with the following command:

   gazebo ./world/gzsitl_drone_target.world --verbose
   

Interaction

The Plugin first detects if the vehicle being simulated on SITL is Landed or already Airborne.

• If Landed, store the initial position as home, set flight mode as guided and request take-off.
• If Airborne, request home position, and keep the current flight mode.

When Airborne, the vehicle follows the transparent sphere (target).

Troubleshooting

Gazebo might fail to open if the needed models or plugins are not found. If that happens, make sure the needed plugins have been successfully built and installed into your shared libraries directory and that all the needed models are present into GAZEBO_MODEL_PATH. The Gazebo --verbose terminal output is useful for determining whether a plugin or a model has not not been found.