Day 2

Focus: Route Custom Messages from ground station through Pixhawk (SITL) to MavROS Node

Useful links to start from

• Create new message XML and source code
• Google groups discussion on passing through MAVlink packages
• custom message from stream (may be useful)
• MAVlink tutorial for absolute dummies

Daily Log

1. Wrote two python scripts for MAVlink UDP debugging, i.e. send(Custom)Message and listenForMessages
   • Python interface turned out to be not very much customizable with outgoing / ingoing port (at least not as MAVros does)
2. Tried routing by exploiting system_id and target_id
3. Using python script setup, we debugged the mavlink module running in PX4 SITL
   • Figured out that the forwarding option -f does not work as expected
   • The code base is somehow messed up (over 2500 loc in mavlink_main.cpp) and we could not find the routing fault
   • Seems that only some messages carry the component id and system_id properly
4. By using -f on both instances of mavlink the routing is possible in both directions --> decided to take the easy way
5. Commented out the sending of an unsuccessful ACK when the target system and component is not matched --> leaving to mavros to respond
6. Installation of QtCreator with ROS plugin

Results

• QGroundControl Custom Widget to send command