This module contains the landing target searching and recognition module for the UAV Challenge (2017).

• Ubuntu 16.04
• ROS Kinetic
• PX4 Firmware
• OpenCV 3
• MAVROS

1. Install Ubuntu, ROS Kinetic, and catkin tools, see here for instructions for Windows and Mac. If Ubuntu is already installed, refer only to the portion for installing ROS and catkin tools.

2. Install mavros if it isn't installed yet

sudo apt update
sudo apt install ros-kinetic-mavros-extras

3. Setup the catkin workspace and download the necessary packages

mkdir -p ~/sandbox/uav_challenge/src
cd ~/sandbox/uav_challenge
catkin init
cd src
git clone https://github.com/PX4/Firmware.git --recursive
git clone https://github.com/eric1221bday/sitl_gazebo.git --recursive
git clone https://github.com/eric1221bday/landing_module.git

4. Build the modules

cd ~/sandbox/uav_challenge
catkin build

source ~/sandbox/uav_challenge/devel/setup.bash
roslaunch landing_module sitl_gazebo.launch

• In sitl_gazebo.launch, there are options to switch the aircraft used to a VTOL instead of the hexacopter by switching the commented out rcS and vehicle arguments. The VTOL gimbal is currently nonfunctional.

• In order to change the location of the target within the simulation, edit the world file in ~/sandbox/uav_challenge/src/sitl_gazebo/worlds/uav_challenge.world. The position of the target can be specified in the <pose>-50 -30 0.01 0 0 0</pose> clause above <uri>model://landing_target</uri>. Units in meters and degres and ordering is (x y z roll pitch yaw)

• h_fov: horizontal FOV of the camera used in degrees, default is 90

• search_altitude: altitude maintained by aircraft during search in meters, default is 50

• search_position_x, search_position_y: coordinate of the center of the search pattern in meters, default is (0,0)