simulator in hardware, new module #11400

romain-chiap · 2019-02-06T16:29:31Z

new module added that allows to run a simulator for quadrotor directly on the hardware autopilot.
For more documentation visit
https://github.com/romain-chiap/PX4_SIH_QuadX

Please use PX4 Discuss or Slack to align on pull requests if necessary.

Test data / coverage
https://review.px4.io/plot_app?log=4a5b5b89-7231-4e7e-a989-f16e71aa9966

Describe problem solved by the proposed pull request
Timing delays due to the bidirectional connection from the hardware to the desktop computer are an issue in the HITL and affect the flight performance. Furthermore, a user willing to modify the quadrotor parameters (mass, inertia, maximum thrust, ...) needs to dig into JMAVSim or Gazebo to do the modification.

Describe your preferred solution
The proposed solution is to add a new module, fully compatible with PX4, called Simulator In Hardware (SIH). It implements the equations of motion of a quadrotor along with thruster force and torque, a simple drag model is also implemented. The sih module subscribes to actuator_outputs to get directly the outputs of the mixer. It also reconstructs noisy sensor data and publish them. The idea is to include the state estimator in the loop, and the controller of course.

The user can modify the drag coefficient, inertia matrix and mass of the vehicle directly from QGC parameters.

This module is fully compatible with the current PX4 Firmware. The following flight modes have been tested:

Manual
Altitude
Accro
Mission
Failsafe (RC signal lost)

Describe possible alternatives
The other alternatives are to use the SITL or current HITL

Additional context
This module was developed to display the quadrotor trajectory in FlightGear, to have a real time visual.
This module outputs the quad position and orientation on a serial port. The idea is to transform those serial data into UDP to communicate the position/attitude to FlightGear for the display. A Java application SerialToUDP.jar is also provided at the following link along with a simple quadrotor model for FlightGear
https://github.com/romain-chiap/PX4_SIH_QuadX

…r in the hardware autopilot, for more documentation visit https://github.com/romain-chiap/PX4_SIH_QuadX

dagar · 2019-02-06T18:50:19Z

Cool! Let me dig into this some more and we can discuss it.

A few initial minor things that stand out are including it on more boards (should be almost everywhere except fmu-v2, io-v2, etc), a mechanism to start it (via param) with the right airframe (safe configuration), and metadata for the parameters.

Trivial code style issues here - http://ci.px4.io:8080/blue/organizations/jenkins/PX4%2FFirmware/detail/PR-11400/1/pipeline

bresch · 2019-02-07T18:29:39Z

It's a really interesting approach. Traditionally, HIL is used because the flight simulator is way too heavy to run on the autopilot itself.

I'll try and give you some feedback as soon as possible!

LorenzMeier · 2019-02-07T20:12:11Z

Super cool!

romain-chiap · 2019-02-08T13:51:09Z

I formatted the code with astyle and the metadata for the parameters.

Regarding the board configs, mc_att_control appears in 40 different cmake files, so I guess I should include it in the same files except:

/px4/fmu-v2/*.cmake
/px4/sitl/*.cmake
any other ?

I think I should exclude it from SITL (to avoid an Inception like simulator :). Anyway, the sensors data will be conflicting with the data from SITL, so I won't include it.

I will check to add another airframe but I'm not very familiar with that.

src/modules/sih/CMakeLists.txt

MaEtUgR · 2019-02-27T17:15:05Z

Devcall: Cool feature! Can we have a minimal automatic test to run in CI and make sure it doesn't break in the future? Can we add some documentation?

@dagar : Suggestion to use jMAVsim or gazebo to display the vehicle state. By using this MAVLink message which get sent here for the ground truth and having a mode for the simulator to just display the state instead of simulating.

romain-chiap · 2019-03-05T19:09:54Z

done:

sih module added in most board configs
new airframe added
- I added a parameter SYS_SIH, which is set to 1 by the airframe
- rcS starts the sih module if SYS_HITL and SYS_SIH equal 1
HIL_STATE_QUATERNION sent through MAVLink
- I made a correction in mavlink_messages.cpp to match the units described in common.xml
real-time implemented with hrt_call_every() and px4_sem_wait(). It works super well, thanks 👍
- sampling time [us]: 3999 avg, 3937 min, 4059 max, <3us rms error
- the module sih uses 10.7% of the CPU time (on auav-x2.1 board)
- for comparison, the ekf2 module uses 11.1% of the CPU time
- the idle task is at 50%

in progress:

read HIL_STATE_QUATERNION on jMAVSim

romain-chiap · 2019-03-05T19:26:37Z

Devcall: Cool feature! Can we have a minimal automatic test to run in CI and make sure it doesn't break in the future? Can we add some documentation?

Where can I add the documentation? This is currently in a pdf file

MaEtUgR · 2019-03-14T13:42:41Z

@romain-chiap Probably docs should go to the development guide's simulation part:
https://dev.px4.io/en/simulation/
https://github.com/PX4/Devguide/tree/master/en/simulation
You could create a page for your onboard simulation. Maybe @hamishwillee can confirm or correct.

src/lib/systemlib/system_params.c

hamishwillee · 2019-03-14T23:25:51Z

@bkueng
What category and subcategory should this be in for the module documentation? Currently this fails because a custom category was used:

 make module_documentation
ninja: Entering directory `/home/ubuntu/src/Firmware/build/px4_sitl_default'
[0/1] Generating module documentation
Scanning source path ['/home/ubuntu/src/Firmware/src']
Exception in file /home/ubuntu/src/Firmware/src/modules/sih/sih.cpp
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/ubuntu/src/Firmware/Tools/px_process_module_doc.py", line 104, in <module>
    main()
  File "/home/ubuntu/src/Firmware/Tools/px_process_module_doc.py", line 84, in main
    if not scanner.ScanDir(args.src_path, parser):
  File "/home/ubuntu/src/Firmware/Tools/px4moduledoc/srcscanner.py", line 24, in ScanDir
    if not self.ScanFile(path, parser):
  File "/home/ubuntu/src/Firmware/Tools/px4moduledoc/srcscanner.py", line 49, in ScanFile
    return parser.Parse(scope, contents)
  File "/home/ubuntu/src/Firmware/Tools/px4moduledoc/srcparser.py", line 304, in Parse
    module_doc.category() + ' for ' + scope)
Exception: Invalid/unknown category sih for modules/sih
FAILED: CMakeFiles/metadata_module_documentation

src/lib/systemlib/system_params.c

hamishwillee · 2019-03-14T23:37:50Z

src/modules/sih/sih_params.c

+ * @min 0.0
+ * @decimal 2
+ * @increment 0.1
+ * @group SIH


Perhaps the group name should be Simulation In Hardware. At this point the acronym isn't as well known as SITL or HITL so while eventually SIH might be obvious, right now it is not.
You can see how all these will render here: https://hamishwillee.gitbooks.io/havdevguide/content/v/test_sih/en/advanced/parameter_reference.html#sih

I put two underscores to:

SIH__LAT0

SIH__LON0

SIH__H0

SIH__MU_X

SIH__MU_Y

SIH__MU_Z

I would like them to be grouped in the documentation. Is there a better way to do it?

I'm thinking of removing those six parameters as they are very specific and don't bring much if changed by the user.

ROMFS/px4fmu_common/init.d/airframes/1100_rc_quad_x_sih.hil

hamishwillee · 2019-03-14T23:52:01Z

@romain-chiap Very very cool. A few comments inline.

With respect to documentation, as @MaEtUgR says above, it should appear in the table here: http://dev.px4.io/en/simulation/#supported-simulators and it should have its own sub page linking to it.

The sub page should provide overview information in the same way as the other pages:

What is the simulator
A diagram showing the architecture
Why is it "special"/good
How to set it up and run it

Mostly this is what you have in https://github.com/romain-chiap/PX4_SIH_QuadX/wiki/Setting-up-the-Coriolis-SIH and on your readme.

You would also link to the generated parameters: https://hamishwillee.gitbooks.io/havdevguide/content/v/test_sih/en/advanced/parameter_reference.html#sih
And to your project page if you wish (I say if you wish because since this is now in PX4 codeline best not to jump people to too many places).

The PDF you link above is pretty cool (though we generate the params, so that section not so useful). It is up to you if you include that content in our docs. IMO that is quite a lot of work so ideally you would copy the file into https://github.com/PX4/Devguide/tree/master/assets/simulation and link to it from there.

I don't know how well you know gitbook, but that is what we use for our infrastructure. Essentially you create files in markdown and submit a PR to https://github.com/PX4/Devguide. Info on the toolchain is here: http://dev.px4.io/en/contribute/docs.html#adding-new-content---big-changes
Don't stress too much about this - your existing docs look pretty good and I can subedit as needed for you.

Is that enough to get started?

romain-chiap · 2019-03-15T00:30:49Z

@hamishwillee
Thanks, I appreciate the comments.
I'm still playing with jMAVSim to have a visualization for the quad. This will need to be described in the documentation as well.
In the meantime I will have a look at gitbook and eventually open a PR when ready.

hamishwillee · 2019-03-15T00:33:22Z

Great. Minimally you could draft a link to your docs and then update when you have a little more time.

bkueng

What category and subcategory should this be in for the module documentation? Currently this fails because a custom category was used:

We can add 'simulation' to https://github.com/PX4/Firmware/blob/master/Tools/px4moduledoc/srcparser.py#L13.

src/lib/systemlib/system_params.c

msg/CMakeLists.txt

src/modules/mavlink/mavlink_messages.cpp

src/modules/sih/sih.cpp

MaEtUgR

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/729692/why-should-text-files-end-with-a-newline

src/modules/sih/sih.cpp

src/modules/sih/CMakeLists.txt

src/modules/sih/sih_params.c

romain-chiap · 2019-03-25T21:22:09Z

@hamishwillee
I created PR757 on the Devguide.

bkueng

I have a couple more remarks, this is IMO good to merge afterwards.

Can you also look into CI and run the style fix script?

ROMFS/px4fmu_common/init.d/rcS

src/modules/mavlink/mavlink_main.cpp

src/modules/sih/sih_params.c

src/modules/sih/sih.hpp

src/modules/sih/sih.cpp

romain-chiap · 2019-03-26T16:39:16Z

Devcall: Cool feature! Can we have a minimal automatic test to run in CI and make sure it doesn't break in the future?

@MaEtUgR
Shall we discuss that in the next devcall (tomorrow)? I have no idea how to create an automatic test.

hamishwillee · 2019-03-27T00:05:22Z

Note there are also file conflicts above to be fixed.

bkueng

@romain-chiap can you rebase?

src/modules/sih/sih.cpp

romain-chiap · 2019-03-27T14:40:07Z

I rebased from PX4/Firmware master.

I synchronized my Fork with PX4/Firmware
I rebased my branch simulator_in_hardware from my branch master
I manually solved the conflicts (i.e. srcparser.py)
I updated the submodules
I compiled and checked the SIH was working properly

bkueng · 2019-03-28T07:27:52Z

Something did not work as expected (you can see it from the many commits that now appear in the PR). Can you try to rebase again?

romain-chiap · 2019-03-28T15:27:24Z

@bkueng
I need some help with rebase (or undo rebase first).

What I did:

checking where I should reset git reflog
resetting to the chosen HEAD git reset --hard HEAD@{52}
make distclean
commit
git push --force

It looks good on my repository branch, but for some reason, it did not followed to the PR.

Is there a good way to fix that? (or shall I make a new "clean" PR?)

bkueng · 2019-04-01T07:54:19Z

It looks good now, but unfortunately, there are conflicts again.
Can you rebase again, and look into CI? For example I see this failure:

../../src/modules/sih/sih.hpp:149:14: fatal error: private field '_counter' is not used [-Wunused-private-field]

        int32_t     _counter = 0;

bkueng · 2019-04-16T12:04:59Z

Done in #11835

simulator in hardware, new module added that allows to run a simulato…

2ad6e64

…r in the hardware autopilot, for more documentation visit https://github.com/romain-chiap/PX4_SIH_QuadX

dagar requested a review from bresch February 6, 2019 18:50

dagar added the Admin: Enhancement (improvement) 💡 label Feb 6, 2019

code style and parameters metadata formatted

93908dc

weekly-digest bot mentioned this pull request Feb 10, 2019

Weekly Digest (3 February, 2019 - 10 February, 2019) #11425

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dagar added the devcall label Feb 27, 2019

dagar added this to Low priority in Devcall Feb 27, 2019

MaEtUgR reviewed Feb 27, 2019

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dagar moved this from Low priority to Discussed in Devcall Feb 27, 2019

weekly-digest bot mentioned this pull request Mar 3, 2019

Weekly Digest (24 February, 2019 - 3 March, 2019) #11577

Closed

new airframe for sih, HIL_STATE_QUATERION sent through MAVLink

0d14902

HIL_STATE_QUATERNION sent only in HIL mode

a19e0f9

sih module implemented with hrt_call_every and semaphore_wait

6b98bad

weekly-digest bot mentioned this pull request Mar 10, 2019

Weekly Digest (3 March, 2019 - 10 March, 2019) #11614

Closed

romain-chiap added 2 commits March 12, 2019 08:40

added a call to px4_sem_destroy()

756401b

white noise generator updated

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MaEtUgR removed the devcall label Mar 13, 2019

hamishwillee reviewed Mar 14, 2019

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romain-chiap added 4 commits March 18, 2019 10:39

code and comments cleanup

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'simulation' category added in srcparser.py

d67b092

sih param names cleanup

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sih.msg removed, serial port communication removed

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newline added at the end of files

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romain-chiap mentioned this pull request Mar 25, 2019

Simulation-in-hardware doc PX4/PX4-Devguide#757

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bkueng reviewed Mar 26, 2019

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send MAVLink GROUND_TRUTH at 25 Hz, only in SIH mode. And minor cleanup

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removed arguments from constructor

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acceleration added when hitting the ground

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bkueng mentioned this pull request Apr 11, 2019

simulator in hardware (rebased) #11835

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simulator in hardware, new module #11400

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simulator in hardware, new module #11400

simulator in hardware, new module #11400

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