Hi from RaccoonLab.org, a team of enthusiasts in field robotics!
We want to share our true-HITL UAVCAN-based simulator for PX4.
Quick demo: https://youtu.be/e9MREW6tCmE
We believe a unified UAVCAN bus for drone onboard electronics will become a mainstream approach shortly. Our simulator is already based on UAVCAN (in opposition to UART-MAVLINK) and emulates exactly the same messages as real UAVCAN-sensors.
Who could be interested:
⁃ UAV Autonomy Researchers could get an instrument for debugging their new approaches to autonomously control UAV, both low and high-level;
⁃ UAVCAN fans will find new examples of this technology application and tool to debug PX4 drivers, for example;
⁃ PX4 Firmware developers will get acquainted with the new HITL simulation approach, in which autopilot possibly works in exactly the same software configuration in simulation and real mode and ideally doesn’t even ‘know’ if it works in a real or simulated environment;
⁃ System architects could discuss ideas on UAVCAN distributed systems development;
⁃ Testers and DevOps engineers could find new ways to ensure autopilot works reliably.
Real application case to check airspeed filtering error in PX4 https://github.com/PX4/PX4-Autopilot/pull/18145#issuecomment-906518924
We are happy to contribute to the ecosystem and welcome adopters, feel free to comment, create issues and pull requests.
We developed several UAVCAN devices (sniffer, UAVCAN-PWM to control servos and ESC with feedback and 2 power options, airspeed sensor, GPS+baro+mag (preorder), lira (preorder), ICE control (preorder), UAVCAN-WIFI for safe debug without wires): http://raccoonlab.org/uavcan
These devices could be used to build UAVCAN bus-oriented onboard control system, which is modern, distributed, and compatible with a new HITL simulation approach.
Best regards,
Roman Fedorenko
RaccoonLab