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Simulation in real conditions of navigation and obstacle avoidance with PX4/Gazebo platform

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Abstract

In the future, UAVs should be a part of the IoT ecosystems. Integration of sensors onboard allows to enrich information stored in the cloud and, at the same time, to improve the capacities of UAVs. Developing new sensors and the integration in UAV architecture could improve control functions. Design of future UAV systems requires from advanced tools to analyze the system components and their interaction in real operational conditions. In this work, authors present an approach to integrate and evaluate a LIDAR sensor and the capacity for improving navigation and obstacle avoidance functions in simulated situations using a real UAV platform. It uses available software for mission definition and execution in UAVs based on PixHawk flight controller and peripherals. The proposed solution (a general method that could be used to integrate other kind of sensors) shows physical integration of the main types of sensors in UAV domain both for navigation and collision avoidance, and at the same time the use of powerful simulation models developed with Gazebo. Some illustrative results show the performance of this navigation and obstacle avoidance function using the simulated sensors and the control of the real UAV in realistic conditions.

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Notes

  1. NuttX Real-Time Operating System, http://nuttx.org/

  2. http://docs.px4.io/en/sensor/LIDAR_lite.html

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Acknowledgments

Authors are grateful to Enrique Martínez Martínez and Ivan Serrano Ruiz, Graduate Engineers at UC3M in 2018 for their helpful collaboration in this work.

Funding

This work was funded by public research projects of Spanish Ministry of Economy and Competitiveness (MINECO), references TEC2017-88048-C2-2-R, RTC-2016-5595-2, RTC-2016-5191-8 and RTC-2016-5059-8.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Applied Artificial Intelligence Group (GIAA), Universidad Carlos III, Madrid, Spain

    Jesús García & Jose M. Molina

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  1. Jesús García
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  2. Jose M. Molina
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Correspondence to Jesús García.

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LIDAR Simulation in Gazebo Environment

LIDAR Simulation in Gazebo Environment

This section illustrates the use of Gazebo environment to generate the sensor input for navigation and obstacle avoidance function. As mentioned, the Iris quadrotor model developed by 3D Robotics is available for direct use from QGround platform and PX4 flight control, containing models of inertial sensors and GPS receiver as output data, and receiving input signals from flight controller to drive the four engines and simulate its dynamics. As an example of configuration for the simulation in Gazebo, the available model includes simulation of GPS noise, with a behavior similar to that typically found in real systems, a feature useful for testing applications that might be impacted by noise in positioning.

So, the GPS noise is enabled if the target vehicle’s SDF file contains a value for the gpsNoise element (i.e., it has the line: <gpsNoise> true </ gpsNoise>). It is enabled by default in many vehicle SDF files, including the quadrotors solo.sdf and iris.sdf. To enable/disable GPS noise the following steps should be carried out:

figure a

Analogously, the model of the LIDAR sensor has been developed with “.sdf” file which reflects the logic behind the sensor’s rays and the information produced. After the definition, the available Iris drone model was extended with a LIDAR sensor coupled in its upper part. The basic specification of Gazebo file is as follows:

figure b

To understand in a more detailed way the operation and the configuration for this sensor, the corresponding .sdf file for LIDAR sensor containing the information referring to the sensor is shown below, including the physical parameters of sensor (location, mass, geometry, etc.), configuration of sensor range and angular coverage, and a facility to visualize the data:

figure c

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García, J., Molina, J.M. Simulation in real conditions of navigation and obstacle avoidance with PX4/Gazebo platform. Pers Ubiquit Comput 26, 1171–1191 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00779-019-01356-4

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