Starling planning using waypoints

[iparra]

Hi,

we want to fly the drone in large indoors environments and we want the planner not to use a single target point but a series of waypoints so that we can plan a very long trajectory inside a building. It does not necessarily has to be on the voxl-portal by clicking, it is ok if we pass along a series of way points coordinates (10-15) and the planner performs plans between waypoints or a long plan passing through the way points. Where should we start looking to do so?

Thank you in advance

[Moderator]

@iparra that's not implemented in the current code base. You'll need to modify the voxl-mapper code to achieve what you are looking to do. You can start by looking here: https://gitlab.com/voxl-public/voxl-sdk/services/voxl-mapper/-/blob/master/server/voxl-mapper/voxl_planner.cc?ref_type=heads

[iparra]

@Moderator Thak you for your help.

I already have a first working version as far as planning is concerned, but I'm looking now into voxl-portal to be able to nicely interactuate with the buttons and the voxl-mapper "states".

[iparra]

@iparra said in Starling planning using waypoints:

@Moderator Thak you for your help.

I already have a first working version as far as planning is concerned, but I'm looking now into voxl-portal to be able to nicely interactuate with the buttons and the voxl-mapper "states".

Another question, after an initial mapping, I don't want to use the mapping feature of voxl-mapper but the planning. Is there a way to tell voxl-mapper not to update the map with the new measures. As there is not actual SLAM, when some VIO fails the map gets ruined and cannot continue flying unless I clear the map and reload. We are relocalizing using april tags, but after the relocalizacions the map can be ruined.

Thank you in advance

[Jetson Nano]

@iparra
I am also currently attempting to do the same. Long waypoint navigation without the drone stopping.
If possible could you tell us what kind of change did you make in the mapper to get this working?

[iparra]

@Jetson-Nano Unfortunately it is not yet fully working, as I said I managed to create plans with waypoints and to fly those plans we are currently launching the plans on a waypoint to waypoint basis so, no full trajectory without stopping (we don't have to click on the waypoints but the drone stops to plan the next strecht). We have done so because we don't trust the VIO to be able to mantain a correct pose for the long trajectory through the waypoints and we "stop" at the waypoints (where we placed april tags) to relocate and replan with a corrected position after a flight between waypoints.

If you trust VIO to follow your planned trajectory it is possible. We have modified the planTo function from mapper to localize the closest waypoint to the clicked target and we launch global_planner_->createPlan(current_start, final_target, waypoints_); iteratively from way point to waypoint without clearing the waypoints_ vector until it reaches the last waypoint and then plan to the actual target. This creates a long trajectory that should be followed when you press follow button. As I said we have never tried to follow the long trajectory, but as far as I understand the drone should follow it given that qvio maintains a good enough pose.

Right now we are experiencing stability issues when switching from position mode to trajectory mode. If we manage to solve that I can run a test with the long trajectory and get back to you.