MissionPlanner Scripts

Table of Contents

1. Instructions
2. Endpoints
3. Sockets

Instructions

SITL & MissionPlanner

1. In order to run SITL on your local machine, you will need to have Docker installed. For installation instructions, refer to the following:

   • Windows Installation
   • MacOS Installation

2. You will also need to have MissionPlanner installed on your system. Refer to installation steps here.

3. Once you have Docker, you will need to pull the SITL image from DockerHub. To do this, run the Docker application then run the following command (where X.X.X is the desired ArduPilot version - this should match what is/will be running on the drone):

   • ArduPlane (VTOL):
     • x86: docker pull ubcuas/uasitl:plane-X.X.X
     • ARM64: docker pull ubcuas/uasitl:plane-arm-X.X.X
   • ArduCopter (Quadcopter):
     • x86: docker pull ubcuas/uasitl:copter-X.X.X
     • ARM64: docker pull ubcuas/uasitl:copter-arm-X.X.X

   If everything goes correctly, running docker image ls should contain an entry for ubcuas/uasitl.

4. Run one of the following commands to get SITL running. Refer to the documentation for more customization:

   x86: docker run --rm -d -p 5760:5760 --name acom-sitl ubcuas/uasitl:[plane/copter]-X.X.X

   ARM64: docker run --rm -d -p 5760:5760 --name acom-sitl ubcuas/uasitl:[plane/copter]-arm-X.X.X

5. Next, open MissionPlanner. The first thing you will want to do is make sure that the dropdown in the top right of the UI is configured to TCP as shown here:

   

6. Press the Connect Button to the right of that pane. You will be prompted with two inputs: one for hostname, and another for the remote port you want to use. Enter the following for each:

   • Hostname: localhost
   • Remote Port: 5760

7. If you have completed all of the above steps you should be ready to use SITL with MissionPlanner. If you see a drone show up on the map then you should be ready to go.

Using MissionPlanner-Scripts

Note

MissionPlanner currently only works on Windows

1. Install required dependencies:

   poetry install --no-root

2. Launch the application:

   On Windows (Powershell)

   poetry run python .\src\main.py
   

   On MacOS

   poetry run python src/main.py
   

   The server will listen on the specified port (default 9000) for HTTP requests, and will use port 4000 to communicate with MissionPlanner.

3. Start the client inside MissionPlanner:

   Navigate to the 'Scripts' tab and select client.py to run, the press 'Run Scripts' to start.

   

Using Tests

To run tests, you must have the Docker image running (uasitl:copter). Then, enter the src directory and run the pytest command via Poetry:

    cd src

    poetry run pytest

Command Line Arguments

Argument	Description
--dev	If present, server is started in development mode rather than production.
--port=9000	Port on which to listen for HTTP requests.
--status-host=localhost	Hostname for the status socket to connect to.
--status-port=1323	Port for the status socket to connect to.
--disable-status	If present, disables the status socket.

Endpoints

See api_spec.yml or postman_collection.json for up-to-date information on endpoints.

Sockets

The status WebSocket client connects to localhost:1323 by default. The hostname and port can be changed via command-line arguments.

Every 100ms, it will emit the drone_update event with the following information:

{
    "timestamp": 0,
    "latitude": 0.0,
    "longitude": 0.0,
    "altitude": 0.0,
    "vertical_velocity": 0.0,
    "velocity": 0.0,
    "heading": 0.0,
    "battery_voltage": 0.0
}

The timestamp is the number of milliseconds since the epoch.