SpartanLIFT (Swarm dePloyment in Autonomous Robot TeleoperAtioNs for Load-Intensive Flight and Transport)

MSc thesis regarding the application of a teleoperated multi-UAV system for cooperative payload transport.

License details

SpartanLIFT (Swarm dePloyment in Autonomous Robot TeleoperAtioNs for Load-Intensive Flight and Transport)

Environment info

OS

$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description:    Ubuntu 22.04.2 LTS
Release:    22.04
Codename:   jammy

ROS

$ echo $ROS_DISTRO
humble

The general ROS2 underlay is automatically sourced during each terminal startup in my configuration. I've achieved so simply by adding source /opt/ros/humble/setup.bash to the ~/.bashrc file. If you don't want to do so, always remember to manually source it.

Additionally, at the time of this project's creation, to correctly use ROS2 and Gazebo Garden we need to configure ros_gz in the local machine from source: this contains all additional packages needed for the ROS2-Gazebo integration. We can simply clone the repository in a workspace as a ROS2 package. Precise instructions can be found in the GitHub repository. Once configured, be sure to also source that overlay before using this project.

Note: if you don't want to configure ros_gz, check if pre-compiled packages are available.

Gazebo Garden

$ gz sim --version
Gazebo Sim, version 7.7.0
Copyright (C) 2018 Open Source Robotics Foundation.
Released under the Apache 2.0 License.

Controller library

I initially started with Ardupilot, but I soon had to switch over to PX4 because the former was not yet ready to be used in ROS2 projects when I started out. Among many things, this meant migrating from Gazebo 6 (Ignition) to Gazebo (Garden).

Models

Drone models and world files downloaded from the Fuel models page:

X3 drone by OpenRobotics
X4 drone by OpenRobotics
Tugbot depot by MovAi
Tugbot warehouse by MovAi I modified them in order to use it for my project.

Installation

To build this project you can easily follow the official guidelines to build and execute ROS2 nodes. Here's a short step-by-step:

git clone this project in a local folder
Install all dependencies, specified in the Requirements chapter
Source your global ROS2 environment (aka the underlay)
Build the project using colcon build
(optional) Execute smoke and unit tests with colcon test
Source the install/setup.bash script (aka the overlay)
Start the desired node or launch file

Requirements

For a more specific list, see the output of the "discover dependencies" task task.

A simple list:

ROS2 Humble → Installed as per official guide
colcon → Installed as per official guide (with autocompletion)
fmt → Installed from source
pugixml → Installed from source
PX4 → Installed as per official guide
eProsima Micro XRCE-DDS Agent → Installed as per official guide

To this you should also add all the other dependencies specified by third-party libraries used by the project.

Warnings during setup

As per this version, the output of colcon build has some warning messages to it. Moreover, I still have some warning myself, which I'll eventually resolve.

Here's an example of output after a complete run, for the sake of completeness.

$ colcon build
Starting >>> px4_msgs
Starting >>> comms
Starting >>> cargo
Starting >>> microxrcedds_agent
Starting >>> odst
Starting >>> reach
Finished <<< cargo [2.08s]  
Finished <<< reach [2.50s]  
--- stderr: odst  
/home/slim71/.local/lib/python3.10/site-packages/setuptools/_distutils/cmd.py:66: SetuptoolsDeprecationWarning: setup.py install is deprecated.
!!

        ********************************************************************************
        Please avoid running ``setup.py`` directly.
        Instead, use pypa/build, pypa/installer, pypa/build or
        other standards-based tools.

        See https://blog.ganssle.io/articles/2021/10/setup-py-deprecated.html for details.
        ********************************************************************************

!!
  self.initialize_options()
---
Finished <<< odst [3.02s]
Finished <<< comms [13.9s]  
[Processing: microxrcedds_agent, px4_msgs]  
[Processing: microxrcedds_agent, px4_msgs]  
[Processing: microxrcedds_agent, px4_msgs]  
--- stderr: microxrcedds_agent  
Cloning into 'spdlog'...
HEAD is now at 7e635fca Fixed #2724 by excluding bin_to_hex sink if using std::format
CMake Warning (dev) at /usr/share/cmake-3.22/Modules/FindPackageHandleStandardArgs.cmake:438 (message):
  The package name passed to `find_package_handle_standard_args` (tinyxml2)
  does not match the name of the calling package (TinyXML2).  This can lead
  to problems in calling code that expects `find_package` result variables
  (e.g., `_FOUND`) to follow a certain pattern.
Call Stack (most recent call first):
  cmake/modules/FindTinyXML2.cmake:40 (find_package_handle_standard_args)
  /opt/ros/humble/share/fastrtps/cmake/fastrtps-config.cmake:51 (find_package)
  CMakeLists.txt:153 (find_package)
This warning is for project developers.  Use -Wno-dev to suppress it.

---
Finished <<< microxrcedds_agent [1min 53s]
[Processing: px4_msgs]  
[Processing: px4_msgs]  
[Processing: px4_msgs]  
[Processing: px4_msgs]  
[Processing: px4_msgs]  
[Processing: px4_msgs]  
[Processing: px4_msgs]  
[Processing: px4_msgs]  
[Processing: px4_msgs]  
[Processing: px4_msgs]  
Finished <<< px4_msgs [7min 10s]  
Starting >>> pelican
Starting >>> px4_ros_com
Finished <<< px4_ros_com [20.8s]  
[Processing: pelican]  
--- stderr: pelican  
/home/slim71/Documents/git/SpartanLIFT/src/pelican/src/PelicanModule/pelican.cpp: In static member function ‘static void Pelican::signalHandler(int)’:
/home/slim71/Documents/git/SpartanLIFT/src/pelican/src/PelicanModule/pelican.cpp:84:33: warning: unused parameter ‘signum’ [-Wunused-parameter]
   84 | void Pelican::signalHandler(int signum) {
      |                             ~~~~^~~~~~
/home/slim71/Documents/git/SpartanLIFT/src/pelican/src/PelicanModule/pelican.cpp: In static member function ‘static void Pelican::signalHandler(int)’:
/home/slim71/Documents/git/SpartanLIFT/src/pelican/src/PelicanModule/pelican.cpp:84:33: warning: unused parameter ‘signum’ [-Wunused-parameter]
   84 | void Pelican::signalHandler(int signum) {
      |                             ~~~~^~~~~~
/home/slim71/Documents/git/SpartanLIFT/src/pelican/test/src/fixtures.cpp: In lambda function:
/home/slim71/Documents/git/SpartanLIFT/src/pelican/test/src/fixtures.cpp:68:69: warning: unused parameter ‘msg’ [-Wunused-parameter]
   68 |         [this](const px4_msgs::msg::VehicleLocalPosition::SharedPtr msg) {
      |                ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^~~
/home/slim71/Documents/git/SpartanLIFT/src/pelican/test/src/fixtures.cpp: In lambda function:
/home/slim71/Documents/git/SpartanLIFT/src/pelican/test/src/fixtures.cpp:79:55: warning: unused parameter ‘msg’ [-Wunused-parameter]
   79 |         [this](const comms::msg::Heartbeat::SharedPtr msg) {
      |                ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^~~
/home/slim71/Documents/git/SpartanLIFT/src/pelican/test/src/fixtures.cpp: In lambda function:
/home/slim71/Documents/git/SpartanLIFT/src/pelican/test/src/fixtures.cpp:90:53: warning: unused parameter ‘msg’ [-Wunused-parameter]
   90 |         [this](const comms::msg::Datapad::SharedPtr msg) {
      |                ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^~~
/home/slim71/Documents/git/SpartanLIFT/src/pelican/src/ElectionModule/election.cpp: In member function ‘void ElectionModule::serveVoteRequest(comms::msg::RequestVoteRPC) const’:
/home/slim71/Documents/git/SpartanLIFT/src/pelican/src/ElectionModule/election.cpp:192:72: warning: unused parameter ‘msg’ [-Wunused-parameter]
  192 | void ElectionModule::serveVoteRequest(const comms::msg::RequestVoteRPC msg) const {
      |                                       ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^~~
/home/slim71/Documents/git/SpartanLIFT/src/pelican/src/PelicanModule/pelican.cpp: In static member function ‘static void Pelican::signalHandler(int)’:
/home/slim71/Documents/git/SpartanLIFT/src/pelican/src/PelicanModule/pelican.cpp:84:33: warning: unused parameter ‘signum’ [-Wunused-parameter]
   84 | void Pelican::signalHandler(int signum) {
      |                             ~~~~^~~~~~
/home/slim71/Documents/git/SpartanLIFT/src/pelican/src/ElectionModule/election.cpp: In member function ‘void ElectionModule::serveVoteRequest(comms::msg::RequestVoteRPC) const’:
/home/slim71/Documents/git/SpartanLIFT/src/pelican/src/ElectionModule/election.cpp:192:72: warning: unused parameter ‘msg’ [-Wunused-parameter]
  192 | void ElectionModule::serveVoteRequest(const comms::msg::RequestVoteRPC msg) const {
      |                                       ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~^~~
---
Finished <<< pelican [1min 20s]

Summary: 8 packages finished [8min 31s]
  3 packages had stderr output: microxrcedds_agent odst pelican

slim71 / SpartanLIFT

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