RSS'24 Aerostack2 demonstration

Repository contained the demonstration used in the Aerostack2 Tutorial in RSS24 Workshop on "Aerial Swarm Tools and Applications"

You can find out the recording of the tutorial at Aerial Swarm Tools and Applications Webpage The slides are also uploaded to thi

Installation steps.

For this demo we are going to use Aerostack2 v1.1.

Setup using Docker (RECOMENDED)

All the demo is designed to be easily used and modify using docker.

# clone this Repository
git clone https://github.com/aerostack2/rss24_demo
cd rss24_demo
# build and run the container
xhost + # this will enable gazebo visualization
docker compose up -d # use the -d for keep the container alive in background

With this there shall be a running instance of the container with this project mounted in /root/project_rss24_demo. Now you can run as much terminals as you need by running:

docker exec -it aerostack2_rss /bin/bash

For stopping the container run xhost - ; docker compose down command on the repo root folder. This will also remove the access to the XServer from the container.

Setup from source

This demo is tested under ROS 2 Humble in Ubuntu 22.04, please refer to official installation guide for setting everything up before continuing with these steps.

You can follow Aerostack2 setup guide for installing and setting up aerostack2.

After this you shall also install and compile the crazyflie platform if you are willing to perform real flight testing.

cd ~/aerostack2_ws/src/
git clone https://github.com/aerostack2/as2_platform_crazyflie.git

For compiling you can use AS2 CLI just by running

as2 build 

otherwise you can run

cd ~/aerostack2_ws/ && colcon build --symlink-install 

Remind to source ~/aerostack2_ws/install/setup.bash on each terminal you are going to use for runnning the demo.

Launching Aerostack2 components for crazyflie

For launching the demo using Crazyflie, we automated the process using tmuxinator. You can run the following commands:

• Launch leader drone:

tmuxinator start -p tmuxinator/crazyflie_launch.yaml namespace=drone0

• Launch follower drone 1:

tmuxinator start -p tmuxinator/crazyflie_launch.yaml namespace=drone1

• Launch follower drone 2:

tmuxinator start -p tmuxinator/crazyflie_launch.yaml namespace=drone2

Launching Aerostack2 components for simulation

For launching the demo, usign Gazebo, we automated the process using tmuxinator. You can run the following commands:

• Launch the gazebo simulator:

ros2 launch as2_gazebo_assets launch_simulation.py simulation_config_file:=platforms_config/gazebo/world.yaml

• Launch leader drone:

tmuxinator start -p tmuxinator/gazebo_launch.yaml namespace=drone0

• Launch follower drone 1:

tmuxinator start -p tmuxinator/gazebo_launch.yaml namespace=drone1

• Launch follower drone 2:

tmuxinator start -p tmuxinator/gazebo_launch.yaml namespace=drone2

Launching the ground station utilities

For monitoring the drone status using RViz and send commands to it using Aerostack2 Keyboard Teleoperation, you can run the following command:

• Launch the ground station:

tmuxinator start -p tmuxinator/ground_station.yaml namespace=drone0,drone1,drone2 rviz=true keyboard_teleop=true use_sim_time=true

Note: If not using Gazebo, set use_sim_time to False.

Launching the follow-drone mission

For running the follow-drone mission you can run the following commands:

• Launch leader mission:

python3 mission_leader.py

• Launch follower mission 1:

python3 mission_follower.py -f drone1 -l drone0

• Launch follower mission 2:

python3 mission_follower.py -f drone2 -l drone1

Note: If not using Gazebo, add '-r' flag to the mission scripts to set use_sim_time to False.

Stop everything

For stopping the demo you can run the following commands:

./stop.bash