windfisch/libcopter_ros

ROS node for libcopter. Allows to control cheap chinese camera drones using the Robot Operating System.

libcopter_ros

This ROS module makes the libcopter (@github) functionality available to ROS clients.

libcopter supports various similar cheap chinese copters that are controlled via WiFi and have a camera on board. Currently, the SG500 and the JJRC blue crab drones are supported.

ROS (short for Robot Operating System) describe themselves as "a set of software libraries and tools that help you build robot applications".

Messages and usage

For an initial setup, do this:

cd ros-workspace/src
git clone --recursive https://github.com/Windfisch/libcopter_ros

After building your workspace, you can launch it using rosrun libcopter_ros libcopter_ros_node.

libcopter_ros_node will then emit and listen to the following messages:

• constantly emits a camera_raw message of type sensor_msgs::Image, which contains the current image from the drone's video stream
• the telemetry1 and telemetry2 streams (which are somewhat misnamed) emit the (yet unknown) additional data coming from the drone
• listens on the cmd_vel topic, expecting geometry_msgs::Twist messages to control the drone
• sending an std_msgs::Empty message to either the takeoff, land or panic topics will perform an automatic takeoff, automatic landing or an immediate motor shut down action.