abv_gnc

Guidance, Navigation and Control for the Air-Bearing Vehicles owned and operated by The Autonomy Lab

Documentation

The complete documentation can be found here.

Overview

The Air-Bearing Vehicle's are a pair of 3DOF spacecraft simulators used for experiments involving contact dynamics, formation flying, and other rendezvous and proximity operations. It utilizes a set of air-bearings with on-board Nitrogen tanks to move across a glass table with very little friction. A second on-board tank pressures 8 different thrusters used for position and attitude control.

Architecture

The software suite is comprised of multiple ROS 2 packages, each implementing a primary functionality. The table below shows the packages and summarizes their responsibility.

Package	Description
abv_bridge	bridge node between abv_msgs and external
abv_bringup	configuration and launch files
abv_commander	command-line tool for sending commands
abv_common	dummy pkg for common code
abv_controller	feedback control via PID, thruster actuation
abv_description	urdf description with rviz launch files
abv_gui	GUI for live telemetry and sending commands
abv_guidance	waypoint sequencing and path following
abv_msgs	custom ROS2 message definitions
abv_navigation	state estimation via EKF, Optitrack integration
abv_simulator	numerical simulator for ABV dynamics
abv_teleop	keyboard or game controller teleop of the ABV

Quick Start

After cloning the repo, run the setup script to install any missing dependencies and build the packages.

./scripts/setup.sh

After the script finishes, launch the core GNC nodes.

Jetson Orin

ros2 launch abv_bringup jetson.launch.py

General

ros2 launch abv_bringup gnc.launch.py