ACEPilot - Multirotor Flight Control System

Hello there 👋

This code is a continuation and rework of the original rc_pilot, which was the original lightweight flight code for controlling a multirotor developed by Dr. Stawson, Dr. Gaskell, and others.

This is a native C++ autopilot code I developed at the beginning of my research career in 2020-2022. It implements cascaded PID control and minimum-snap trajectory guidance. I have not actually used it for many years now, so some instructions below may no longer work properly.

Installation:

Made to run on Beaglebone Blue (BBB) Linux board with the Debian image from the official website:\

• A very helpful starting point - BBB getting started page.
• You must install official BBB image.
• I recommend you familiarize yourself with the robot control library (start with the manual).

Pre-INSTAL (LINUX):

In the terminal, as root, type the following to install all needed packages (CMAKE + gdb + Ninja):

apt-get update && apt-get install cmake -y && apt-get install build-essential gdb -y && apt-get install ninja-build -y

Project Compilation:

Download the project folder either to your workstation and transfer the files to BBB using scp or WinSCP (Windows): You can place <this_project_name> that you have downloaded from GitHub into (BBB) into "/home/debian/this_project_name/" directory. Afterwards, create a build directory <build_folder>:

mkdir /home/debian/build_folder/

This would be the location where you want to compile the project to.

Pre-Compile:

In the terminal, as root, type the following to install all needed packages (CMAKE):

cmake -S /home/debian/this_project_name/ -B /home/debian/build_folder/

Complie Project:

Go into the build folder:

cd /home/debian/build_folder/
make

Running the project:

To run the project, you just need to call the main executable with the proper arguments. To see the list of arguments:

/home/debian/build_folder/MAIN/rc_pilot -h

For now, it only requires attaching a proper <SETTINGS_FILE> as:

/home/debian/build_folder/MAIN/bin/rc_pilot -s /home/debian/build_folder/MAIN/Settings/SETTINGS_FILE.json

Notes:

Magnetometer (Compass) Issues

If you have just installed a brand new Debian image, you may run into a problem that the compass is not accessible (rc_calibrate_mag exit with error). The first thing to try is to run the example script for dmp mode with the magnetometer option enabled:

rc_test_dmp -m -c -t

This should print out raw compass readings + filtered and fused Tait Bryan angles. Even if calibration was never performed, this should still work... Try running calibration again:

rc_calibrate_mag

If the same issues persist, try to update everything and repeat the steps above.

Updating everything:

There are cases when you might need to update all the libraries and even Linux Kernel to remove some of the bugs. First of all, update all the libraries (as a root):

apt-get update && apt update && apt-get upgrade -y && apt upgrade -y

Now go and update the scripts for updating Kernel:

cd /opt/scripts
git pull

Update Kernel (as a root):

tools/update_kernel.sh

Reboot for the changes to become effective:

shutdown -r now

You may need to update everything once again since you are now running the most recent Linux Kernel and more recent updates are now available:

apt-get update && apt update && apt-get upgrade -y && apt upgrade -y

Some packages might want to be updated manually, for example:

apt upgrade c9-core-installer

Where you need to manually accept (Y) the update. This should be done for all the packages that have been "kept back".

Modifying the source code:

It is advised to always work on your machine (Windows/MAC OS Desktop/Laptop) to avoid any possible loss of changes on BBB (it can crash). Also, it is much easier to keep track of the new changes if working on your machine and only transferring+compiling on BBB (especially when using Visual Studio or similar Github-enabled environments).
If you want to modify the source code from BBB, you need to do it only in <this_project_name> folder and not <build_folder> and repeat the compilation steps both using "cmake" and "make".

Documentation:

You can look into docs/ folder for more information regarding code layout and details regarding the control system, estimation, etc.

Contact

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me, Yevhenii (Jack) Kovryzhenko, at yzk0058@auburn.edu.

Credit

This work started during my undergraduate research at ACELAB at Auburn University, under the supervision of Dr. Ehsan Taheri.

I would like to express my appreciation to Ella Atkins for providing access to the rc_pilot firmware, and to Matthew Romano and Behdad Davoudi for their assistance in understanding how to use it properly. Their contributions have been vital in initiating this research and enhancing my understanding of embedded system code and architecture.

Check out my more recent autopilot-related works like PX4 Simulink IO Framework, RRTV TiltWing and Quadrotor_with_FF_Control.

Feel free to cite any of my earlier papers that directly used this work:

• Kovryzhenko, Y., “Application of the Finite Fourier Series for Smooth Motion Planning of Quadrotors,” Masters Thesis. Auburn University, 2023.

   @mastersthesis{kovryzhenko_application_2023,
   	title = {Application of the finite fourier series for smooth motion planning of quadrotors},
   	copyright = {Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC-BY-NC-ND)},
   	url = {https://etd.auburn.edu//handle/10415/8797},			
   	language = {en},
   	urldate = {2023-07-26},
   	school = {Auburn University},
   	author = {Kovryzhenko, Yevhenii},
   	collaborator = {Taheri, Ehsan and Chakraborty, Imon and Li, Nan},
   	month = jul,
   	year = {2023},
   }
  

• Kovryzhenko, Y., and Taheri, E., “Comparison of Minimum-Snap and Finite Fourier Series Methods for Multi-Copter Motion Planning,” presented at the AIAA SCITECH 2022 Forum, San Diego, CA & Virtual, 2022. https://doi.org/10.2514/6.2022-1085

   @inproceedings{kovryzhenko_comparison_2022,
   	address = {San Diego, CA \& Virtual},
   	title = {Comparison of minimum-snap and finite fourier series methods for multi-copter motion planning},
   	copyright = {All rights reserved},
   	isbn = {978-1-62410-631-6},
   	url = {https://arc.aiaa.org/doi/10.2514/6.2022-1085},
   	doi = {10.2514/6.2022-1085},
   	language = {en},
   	urldate = {2022-09-13},
   	booktitle = {AIAA SCITECH 2022 Forum},
   	publisher = {American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics},
   	author = {Kovryzhenko, Yevhenii and Taheri, Ehsan},
   	month = jan,
   	year = {2022},
   }
  

• Kovryzhenko, Y., and Taheri, E., “Development of Cascaded Control and Path- Planning Algorithms for Autonomous Aerial Vehicles,” Auburn University Journal of Undergraduate Scholarship, 2021, p. 4.

   @article{kovryzhenko_development_2021,
   	title = {Development of Cascaded Control and Path-Planning Algorithms for Autonomous Aerial Vehicles},
   	copyright = {All rights reserved},
   	url = {https://bpb-us-e2.wpmucdn.com/wordpress.auburn.edu/dist/a/151/files/2022/01/FINAL-2021-22-AUJUS-Issue-Working-File.pdf},
   	language = {en},
   	journal = {Auburn University Journal of Undergraduate Scholarship},
   	author = {Kovryzhenko, Yevhenii and Taheri, Ehsan},
   	year = {2021},
   	pages = {4},
   }