MAVlink Gimbal Data

[BrettRD]

The object tracker needs to know (or control) the current orientation of the gimbal.

Ideally, we'd still be able to adjust the pose of the camera with the transmitter.

[jtanx]

@BrettRD, it builds fine on my own computer, so not exactly sure why Travis is failing with:

/home/travis/build/jtanx/picopterx/code/src/modules/object_tracker.cpp: In member function ‘void picopter::ObjectTracker::EstimatePositionFromImageCoords(picopter::GPSData*, picopter::FlightData*, picopter::IMUData*, picopter::ObjectInfo*)’:

/home/travis/build/jtanx/picopterx/code/src/modules/object_tracker.cpp:321:33: error: conversion from ‘cv::Matx<double, 3, 1>’ to non-scalar type ‘cv::Vec3d {aka cv::Vec<double, 3>}’ requested

     cv::Vec3d RelBody = Rgimbal * RelCam;

                                 ^

make[2]: *** [src/modules/CMakeFiles/picopter_modules.dir/object_tracker.cpp.o] Error 1

make[1]: *** [src/modules/CMakeFiles/picopter_modules.dir/all] Error 2

make: *** [all] Error 2

Edit: looks like Travis is using OpenCV 2.3.

[jtanx]

Never mind, added some random PPA to get OpenCV 2.4 and it's fine now.

[jtanx]

With the FlightBoard overhaul in progress, I've confirmed that the Pixhawk does send where it thinks the gimbal is via the ArduCopter specific MOUNT_STATUS message.

Interestingly, and unless I've decoded the message wrong, it seems that it considers our roll to be our pitch and our pitch to be our roll.

[jtanx]

Also: The simulator does not send these MOUNT_STATUS messages.

[jtanx]

@BrettRD I've merged the latest master (with all the flightboard changes) into your observations branch.

Since the SetBodyVel command controls altitude with the z parameter, there is now a separate function SetYaw to control yaw. I'm not sure if you still want to use relative commands for this purpose - I don't know if using SetGuidedWaypoint would be better or not.

[jtanx]

@BrettRD I've just merged what is currently in your observations branch into master, because it actually has at least a semi-working object tracker vs. something that will likely make the copter behave erratically if we do object tracking. You can still continue working on the observations branch though.

[BrettRD]

I've zeroed the mavlink gimbal messages using down as the neutral position. The pitch servo can reach just past horizontal (0deg) and vertical (+90deg). I've used the follwing settings in mavlink. Pitch: reverse, Min = 1006uS, -10deg Max = 2100uS, +90deg Roll: reverse, Min = 1100uS, -55deg Max = 1900uS, 40deg

This will apply until the camera falls off again.