2.1.1. GPS support, update 2.2.2. Ivy / Mavlink / ROS bridging I am putting this here because it is a piece of information i have been looking for myself and in the hope it might be useful for someoneThe Parrot ARDrone is a cheap, stable, and readily availableWanting to use it for robotics experiments going beyond what can be done with the apps, you might wonder which framework to pick to base your own development on. Below I list three existing and well developed frameworks and briefly enumerate the See also our lab's robot doucmentation at https://wikis.hu-berlin.de/koro/AR_Drone There is a ROS driver for the ARDrone, which is, quoting the source, "ardroneautonomy" is a ROS driver for Parrot AR-DroneThis driver is based on official AR-Drone SDK version 2.0 and supports both AR-Drone 1.0 and 2.0. It supports both ARDrone versions and getting the drone into the air consists mostly in installing the ros-DISTRO-ardrone-autonomy .deb on

an Ubuntu base (12.04/groovy, 13.10/hydro, 14.04/indigo) and issuing aThere is a nice tutorial by Mike Hamer that basically explains all necessary steps, such as or alternatively use more slightly more involved stuff These are from the code coming with the above mentioned tutorial, also rendering the drone's video feed in a ROS window. Being based on the SDK, ROS communicates with the default parrotIn the default configuration this results in a bit of aThere's lots of parameters settable via ROS params but i haven't played with that. Thanks to Mani Monajjemi's work, support for the Parrot Flight Recorder GPS module has been enabled. The functionality is in the gps-waypoint branch, install instructions are in the docs at I briefly tested install and ran the ardronedriver with "enablenavdatagps:=True", the data seems to be coming in fine. test the actual waypoint navigation (pending). ROS also seems to suffer from the stuck magnetometer problems

resulting in a message from the driver like: "Something seems to be wrong with the magnetometer (small values)." Paparazzi is a well known and mature autonmous flight environment. recent addition makes it possible to operate the ARDrone from withinThere are two ways to do it, using either SDK based control or uploading the native ppz firmware for onboardparrot ar drone 2 sdkOnly ardrone\raw worked for me. parrot ar drone 2 bearingsUsing raw mode, you looseparrot ar drone tips tricks visual stabilization but there is a gstreamer based video frameworkx rebirth drones recall and some example gst apps that can be used to do vision basedparrot ar drone portée

gstreamer is a modular video processing and streaming suite and operates with (in my experience) quite low latency. Configuring ATT mode ("normal" attitude control mode) for use with a joystick (e.g. gamepad) make it easier later on. I used a PS3 gamepad Getting the right hardware accelerates the progress of things, ubloxar parrot drone kopen GPS seems to be a good choice (used drotek's USB ready NEO6-MIt seems this module needs the cdc-acm.ko driver which I set up Then you need to calibrate the magnetometer. How to do that is described in the ppz wiki. After connecting the GPS, calibrating the Mag and having prepared the flight environment, go outside, wait for the fix, adjust your flight plan and try takeoff, standby, p1, go p2, Update : thanks to several investigative minds , this can be fixed by resetting the navboard via GPIO 177 when the values stall.

There is a problem with the magnetometer which sometimes gets stuck, not sending data anymore. This results in the GPS navigation failingTry to emergency land and restart. several successful flights though, you just need to watch behaviour diligently or fix the problem. In general, the experience is a teaser for a real paparazzi system. Ivy / Mavlink / ROS bridging There are several ways for bridging the ivy-based Paparazzi communications into Mavlink or ROS: There is an ivy/ros bridge available here at that yet and it seems it needs to be updated for use with hydro and There is a ground agent for that purpose on the mavlink github /mavlink/mavlink-ivy-interface (by way of There is an ivy-bridge module in our mavhub framework but it has been a while that i have used this. You can operate the drone from qgroundcontrol. The details escape meBasically you can set GPS waypoints and let the drone exectue that flight plan.

Parrot has a user guide for setting that up /support/ -> User guides. This is a library for talking to the drone via javascript. interesting, even more so if javascript is your language, SDK controlI have not tested it details are here. In summary, both ROS and Paparazzi for ARDrone work very well. want to do outdoor GPS based experiments, you currently need to useFor indoor use and easy access experiments for students ROS is probably the way to go. FIXME: put that into Paparazzi or Koro Wiki.Parrot has become a popular name in the drone industry, with different drone models to cater to different needs. Four of the company's drone models are the Bebop, the Jumping Sumo, the Rolling Spider and the AR.These four models share certain similarities but also have several differences among them, and, for customers looking to purchase drones, these four models are good choices depending on what the user wants. The high-flying Bebop is very light, but that does not mean that it is fragile.

Its light frame allows it to be controlled with precision, and the drone's polystyrene and moving joints are durable enough to function as shock absorbers. The battery is the Bebop's biggest and heaviest part, but it can be disconnected from the drone and placed into its charger with ease. The Jumping Sumo, on the other hand, does not fly like the Bebop but rather rolls on the ground as a remote-controlled vehicle. Its design is how it got its name, as the user can make it jump at either one of two angles by compressing the springs in its rear wheels then releasing them. The Sumo can jump forward or straight up by around 2.6 feet. Parrot returns to flying with the Rolling Spider, a mini-quadcopter that is called as such due to the two wheels that can be attached to either end of the drone. The optional wheels will allow the drone to roll across surfaces while protecting the Rolling Spider and its plastic rotors when it is in flight.Drone 2.0 is another quadcopter that features two styrofoam bodies, one being an indoor body that has foam rings surrounding the rotors and the other being an outdoor body that allows the rotors to remain exposed.

The bodies can easily be slipped over the frame of the drone and will securely remain there. The 14MP camera of the Bebop features an f2.2 fish-eye lens that has an angle view of 180 degrees. It is able to take 1080p full HD videos that are recorded in MP4 format, while pictures taken can either be in JPEG format or DNG raw format. The files are stored on the drone's 8GB built-in memory. The quality of the camera of the Jumping Sumo is much lower, as the video taken is at 640 x 480 pixels at 15 frames per second, but it is enough to allow users to see through the "eyes" of the drone. The camera of the Rolling Spider, on the other hand, is only able to take 640 x 480 pixel still images with quality that is not so great.Drone 2.0 is packed with a pair of cameras, one facing forward and the other facing downward, which can record in 720p quality. The videos and pictures that the cameras take are stored directly in the user's tablet or smartphone or in a USB plugged into the drone.

Parrot drones can be controlled using its FreeFlight app, which allows users to operate the movements of the drones and controls their cameras. The app is compatible with iOS, Android and Windows Phone devices. The Bebop has the bonus of featuring a GNSS chipset, which allows users to set certain waypoints and flight plans to make the Bebop fly autonomously. Parrot also offers the Skycontroller for the Bebop, which features a pair of sticks for piloting, camera controls, take-off/landing, emergency motor cut-off and return-to-home buttons, and battery status lights. The Skycontroller can also be paired wirelessly with a smartphone or tablet to provide the user with a first person view of the drone. Both the Bebop and the AR.Drone feature GPS to allow users to track the drone's flight. The MSRP of the Bebop is $499, the Jumping Sumo is $159.95, the Rolling Spider is $99.95 and the AR.Drone 2.0 is $299.99. Users may find better deals for the drones on their favorite online or physical retail stores.