WP6-09

Gazebo DronePort Extensions

Gazebo DronePort Extensions (GDE) is a set of tools that enables Gazebo Simulator to simulate an autonomous battery system called Droneport. It is proposed and developed by the team from New Technologies for Information Society research centre at the University of West Bohemia. Using GDE, it is possible to simulate all functionalities of droneport in single or multi agent scenarios, where agent can be drone or DronePort device. It consists of several parts necessary to run the simulation. In particular it is DronePort model for Gazebo, DronePort plugin for Gazebo, a set of Models used for simulation based on the PX4_SITL_Gazebo repository. Finally, scripts for running the simulation and for testing DronePort capabilities are also part of the GDE. All parts are shown in Figure 1

Gazebo DronePort Extensions simulation scheme

Description

The DronePort model is a box-shaped device with an openable cover containing ArUco code on its top. The model was significantly improved compared to the previous version modelled as a static, rigid box with ArUco code. The DronePort system has an overview of the battery status of individual drones. Thus, it can prepare for the battery change by doing the following steps. In the first steps, it withdraws the drone from the mission. Then the cover of the device opens in reaction to a MAVlink message. When the drone has successfully landed, the device changes its battery. Then, the drone can take off, and a removed battery is put into one of the charging stations in the device. In the simulation, there is a simplification. The changing process is instantaneously done by virtual swapping batteries in the memory. In other words, the simulation doesn’t incorporate the arm for battery exchange as is the case of a real device. The model is shown in Figure 2.