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  3. VOXL2/ROS2 Drone Runs Figure 8 Offboard Program Instead of My Program

VOXL2/ROS2 Drone Runs Figure 8 Offboard Program Instead of My Program

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  • K Kessie

    @claw You'll need to change the parameter COM_RC_OVERRIDE to also allow overriding offboard mode.

    Reference link : https://docs.px4.io/main/en/advanced_config/parameter_reference.html#COM_RC_OVERRIDE

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    GlennTee
    Contributor
    wrote on last edited by
    #15

    @Kessie Hi again, we just changed COM_RC_OVERRIDE to allow for overriding offboard mode and we were able to cut the motors while the drone was operating in offboard mode. We modified the PX4 ROS 2 Offboard Control Example code to only enable offboard mode and arm the drone, but we noticed that once the drone armed, it had a lot of throttle. I'm guessing there is a setting maybe in QGroundControl to modify the throttle somehow, or is there another way to fix this?

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    • G GlennTee

      @Kessie Hi again, we just changed COM_RC_OVERRIDE to allow for overriding offboard mode and we were able to cut the motors while the drone was operating in offboard mode. We modified the PX4 ROS 2 Offboard Control Example code to only enable offboard mode and arm the drone, but we noticed that once the drone armed, it had a lot of throttle. I'm guessing there is a setting maybe in QGroundControl to modify the throttle somehow, or is there another way to fix this?

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      GlennTee
      Contributor
      wrote on last edited by
      #16

      I just ran into another problem where I believe after running "voxl-configure-microdds" again, it seems some of my changes were reset as I noticed "offboard_mode" defaulted back to "figure_eight" while looking in the vision-hub config file. However, I did notice that my changes with the node publishers were not changed.
      9ede8047-26a7-4a41-8c04-bb7fcd35c104-image.png
      I thought I have reverted everything to how it was before, but the drone is now back to not flying at all. I also noticed that my list of ros2 topics has also shrunk down as well.
      bb2d4d6b-c60e-4e5a-bee8-66793f50ddc4-image.png

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      • G GlennTee

        I just ran into another problem where I believe after running "voxl-configure-microdds" again, it seems some of my changes were reset as I noticed "offboard_mode" defaulted back to "figure_eight" while looking in the vision-hub config file. However, I did notice that my changes with the node publishers were not changed.
        9ede8047-26a7-4a41-8c04-bb7fcd35c104-image.png
        I thought I have reverted everything to how it was before, but the drone is now back to not flying at all. I also noticed that my list of ros2 topics has also shrunk down as well.
        bb2d4d6b-c60e-4e5a-bee8-66793f50ddc4-image.png

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        teddy.zaremba
        Contributor
        wrote on last edited by
        #17

        @GlennTee said in VOXL2/ROS2 Drone Runs Figure 8 Offboard Program Instead of My Program:

        I thought I have reverted everything to how it was before, but the drone is now back to not flying at all. I also noticed that my list of ros2 topics has also shrunk down as well.

        This likely means that those topics got populated from the offboard script not the px4-ros bridge. Could you check that voxl-microdds-agent is running when you see this happen.

        Check with "voxl-inspect-services"

        2f02cb49-ce93-4bb0-ad98-4163a961fa02-image.png

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        • G GlennTee

          I just ran into another problem where I believe after running "voxl-configure-microdds" again, it seems some of my changes were reset as I noticed "offboard_mode" defaulted back to "figure_eight" while looking in the vision-hub config file. However, I did notice that my changes with the node publishers were not changed.
          9ede8047-26a7-4a41-8c04-bb7fcd35c104-image.png
          I thought I have reverted everything to how it was before, but the drone is now back to not flying at all. I also noticed that my list of ros2 topics has also shrunk down as well.
          bb2d4d6b-c60e-4e5a-bee8-66793f50ddc4-image.png

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          GlennTee
          Contributor
          wrote on last edited by GlennTee
          #18

          @teddy-zaremba Hi, I just checked using that command and it appears the agent is enabled, but it is not running.
          8a5d37ad-cb10-44da-9849-16d26502a287-image.png

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          • G GlennTee

            @teddy-zaremba Hi, I just checked using that command and it appears the agent is enabled, but it is not running.
            8a5d37ad-cb10-44da-9849-16d26502a287-image.png

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            teddy.zaremba
            Contributor
            wrote on last edited by
            #19

            @GlennTee Can you run the command "voxl-microdds-agent" and share your output please?

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            • T teddy.zaremba

              @GlennTee Can you run the command "voxl-microdds-agent" and share your output please?

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              GlennTee
              Contributor
              wrote on last edited by
              #20

              @teddy-zaremba said in VOXL2/ROS2 Drone Runs Figure 8 Offboard Program Instead of My Program:

              voxl-microdds-agent"

              This is what I get:
              0ca1964f-a566-4197-b459-8f83fc26b790-image.png

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              • G GlennTee

                @teddy-zaremba said in VOXL2/ROS2 Drone Runs Figure 8 Offboard Program Instead of My Program:

                voxl-microdds-agent"

                This is what I get:
                0ca1964f-a566-4197-b459-8f83fc26b790-image.png

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                teddy.zaremba
                Contributor
                wrote on last edited by
                #21

                @GlennTee This looks fine to me if it's not running I'd suggest just restarting the service via "systemctl restart voxl-microdds-agent" and then double check that it's running with "voxl-inspect-services"

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                • T teddy.zaremba

                  @GlennTee This looks fine to me if it's not running I'd suggest just restarting the service via "systemctl restart voxl-microdds-agent" and then double check that it's running with "voxl-inspect-services"

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                  claw
                  wrote on last edited by
                  #22

                  @teddy-zaremba Your help is very much appreciated.

                  Ok, so some of the confusion was related to editing the Python example, but it's actually running the cpp code. With that corrected, it shows all of the expected topics in the "ros2 topic list" and the code sends the arm command to the correct topic according to "ros2 topic echo /uav_4/fmu/in/vehicle_command", however, the Starling doesn't arm. We're trusting the example code as to the data structure that is actually populated and sent to that topic. Is there a reference as to what that should be?

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                  • Zachary Lowell 0Z Offline
                    Zachary Lowell 0Z Offline
                    Zachary Lowell 0
                    ModalAI Team
                    wrote on last edited by
                    #23

                    @claw said in VOXL2/ROS2 Drone Runs Figure 8 Offboard Program Instead of My Program:

                    Ok, so some of the confusion was related to editing the Python example, but it's actually running the cpp code. With that corrected, it shows all of the expected topics in the "ros2 topic list" and the code sends the arm command to the correct topic according to "ros2 topic echo /uav_4/fmu/in/vehicle_command", however, the Starling doesn't arm. We're trusting the example code as to the data structure that is actually populated and sent to that topic. Is there a reference as to what that should be?

                    Reply

                    @claw what code are you referring to? The ros2 figure 8 code is written in python:

                    Link Preview Image
                    colcon_ws/src/voxl_offboard_figure8/voxl_offboard_figure8/voxl_offboard_figure8.py · master · voxl / VOXL SDK / Utilities / voxl-mpa-to-ros2 · GitLab

                    GitLab.com

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                    GitLab (gitlab.com)

                    voxl-mpa-to-ros2 itself is written in CPP, but this node specific is in python as it can be either. With the DDS running, you do not need the voxl-mpa-to-ros2 code running as that just converts MPA to ros2, but regardless you dont need that running if the goal is just to publish to the dds via this ros2 node. How are you executing this? ros2 run voxl_offboard_figure8 voxl_offboard_figure8?

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                    • Zachary Lowell 0Z Zachary Lowell 0

                      @claw said in VOXL2/ROS2 Drone Runs Figure 8 Offboard Program Instead of My Program:

                      Ok, so some of the confusion was related to editing the Python example, but it's actually running the cpp code. With that corrected, it shows all of the expected topics in the "ros2 topic list" and the code sends the arm command to the correct topic according to "ros2 topic echo /uav_4/fmu/in/vehicle_command", however, the Starling doesn't arm. We're trusting the example code as to the data structure that is actually populated and sent to that topic. Is there a reference as to what that should be?

                      Reply

                      @claw what code are you referring to? The ros2 figure 8 code is written in python:

                      Link Preview Image
                      colcon_ws/src/voxl_offboard_figure8/voxl_offboard_figure8/voxl_offboard_figure8.py · master · voxl / VOXL SDK / Utilities / voxl-mpa-to-ros2 · GitLab

                      GitLab.com

                      favicon

                      GitLab (gitlab.com)

                      voxl-mpa-to-ros2 itself is written in CPP, but this node specific is in python as it can be either. With the DDS running, you do not need the voxl-mpa-to-ros2 code running as that just converts MPA to ros2, but regardless you dont need that running if the goal is just to publish to the dds via this ros2 node. How are you executing this? ros2 run voxl_offboard_figure8 voxl_offboard_figure8?

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                      GlennTee
                      Contributor
                      wrote on last edited by
                      #24

                      @Zachary-Lowell-0 Hi, the code we are referring to is from an example on the PX4 website, where the drone should engage in offboard mode, arm, ascend a desired height, and wait. The link to that is here: https://docs.px4.io/main/en/ros2/offboard_control.html

                      We are trying to run this program on our Starling drone, and the line we are running to execute the program is "ros2 run px4_ros_com offboard_control"

                      With the changes made, we now see that the arm command is being sent to the correct topic, but the drone continues to not arm.

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                      • G GlennTee

                        @Zachary-Lowell-0 Hi, the code we are referring to is from an example on the PX4 website, where the drone should engage in offboard mode, arm, ascend a desired height, and wait. The link to that is here: https://docs.px4.io/main/en/ros2/offboard_control.html

                        We are trying to run this program on our Starling drone, and the line we are running to execute the program is "ros2 run px4_ros_com offboard_control"

                        With the changes made, we now see that the arm command is being sent to the correct topic, but the drone continues to not arm.

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                        GlennTee
                        Contributor
                        wrote on last edited by
                        #25

                        @GlennTee Good news! The program now runs, turns out I needed to add the .py extension to the file name when calling the run command, so it should be "ros2 run px4_ros_com offboard_control.py"

                        However, we experienced a lot of errors while running. The drone did arm (But only would do every even numbered attempt for some reason), however it did not fly. I'm working now to debug these errors.
                        image(1).png

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