Autopilot service

Introduction

The autopilot service is an on-board module that controls the operation of the flight controller, as required by the rest of modules in the Drone Engineering Ecosystem.
Dashboard or mobile applications will requiere the autopilot service to connect to the flight controller, to arm the drone, take-off, go to a certain position or move in a given direction, land, stop, etc. See the table bellow for a complete list of commands that can be accepted by the autopilot service in its current version.

Installations

In order to run and contribute you must install Python 3.7. We recommend PyCharm as IDE for development.
Contributions must follow the contribution protocol that you will find in the main repo of the Drone Engineering Ecosystem.

Commands

In order to send a command to the autopilot service, a module must publish a message in the external (or internal) broker. The topic of the message must be in the form:

"XXX/autopilotService/YYY"

where XXX is the name of the module requiring the service and YYY is the name of the service that is required. Oviously, some of the commands may require additional data that must be included in the payload of the message to be published. In some cases, after completing the service requiered the autopilot service publish a message as an answer. The topic of the answer has the format:

"autopilotService/XXX/ZZZ"

where XXX is the name of the module requiring the service and ZZZ is the answer. The message can include data in the message payload.

The table bellow indicates all the commands that are accepted by the autopilot service in the current version.

Command	Description	Payload	Answer	Answer payload
connect	connect with the simulator or the flight controller depending on the operation mode	No	No (see Note 1)	No
armDrone	arms the drone (either simulated or real)	No	NO (see Note 2)	No
takeOff	get the drone take off to reach and altitude of 5 meters	No	No (see Note 3)	No
returnToLaunch	go to launch position	No	No (see Note 4)	No
land	the dron will land	No	No (see Note 5)	No
disarmDrone	disarm the drone	No	No (see Note 6)	No
go	move in certain direction	"North", "South", "East", "West", "NorthWest", "NorthEast", "SouthWest", "SouthEast" , "Stop"	No	No
disconnect	disconnect from the simulator or the flight controller depending on the operation mode	No	NO (see Note 1)	No
executeFlightPlan	execute the flight plan received	See Note 7	see Note 7	see Note 7

Note 1
When the autopilot is connected the service will start sending telemetry_info packets every 250 miliseconds. The service will stop sending telemetry_info packets as soon as a disconnect command is received. This is an example of telemetry_info packet:

{
    'lat': 41.124567,
    'lon': 1.9889145,
    'heading': 270,
    'groundSpeed': 4.27,
    'altitude': 6.78,
    'battery': 80,
    'state': state
}

The packet includes the state of the autopilot so that the module that receives the packet can take decisions (for instance, change color of the buttons).

These are the different values for the state: 'connected'
'arming'
'armed'
'disarmed'
'takingOff'
'flying'
'returningHome'
'landing'
'onHearth'

Note 2
The state will change to arming and then to armed as soon as the autopilot is armed.

Note 3
The state will change to takingOff and then to flying as soon as the autopilot reaches 5 meters of altitude.

Note 4
The state will change to returningHome and then to onHearth as soon as the autopilot in on hearth.

Note 5
The state will change to landing and then to onHearth as soon as the autopilot in on hearth.

Note 6
The state will change to disarmed.

Note 7
The service must receive a json object specifying the flight plan with indications whether a picture must be taken when reaching a waypoint. This is an example of such json object:

[
  {
    'lat': 41.124567,
    'lon': 1.9889145,
    'takePic': True or False
  },
  {
    'lat': 41.124567,
    'lon': 1.9889145,
    'takePic': True or False
  },
  ....
]

The service will execute the flight plan, changing the state accordingly ('arming', 'armed', 'takingOff', and so on until 'onHearth').
When arrived to the next waypoint the service will publish this message: 'XXXX/autopilotService/waypointReached',, being XXXX the module requesting the service. The topic of the message is a json object containing 'lat' and 'lon' of the reached waypoint. If a picture must be taken in this waypoint, the service will publish this message IN THE INTERNAL BROKER: 'XXXX/cameraService/takePicture'. The autopilot will return to launch after the last waypoint is reached.

dronsEETAC / AutopilotServiceDEE

readme

Autopilot service

Introduction

Installations

Commands