Problem with Arducopter HITL Setup with FlightGear

[Saloni Jain]

Hi All,

We have done Arducopter HIL setup done on Windows 7 (64 bit) machine using FlightGear Hardware-in-the-Loop Simulation Setup.

Current Problem: Motors are not getting armed in the flightgear simulator. Nothing happens when trying to fly the copter in predefined mission in autonomous mode. Seems connection problem between mission planner and flightgear.

Software Installed for the setup:

• Mission Planner – Mission Planner 1.3.17 – could connect with Pixhawk, having the option of Start FlightGear under simulation tab but Temp panel does not have “arm and takeoff”.
• FlightGear – As per http://ardupilot.org/dev/docs/flightgear-hardware-in-the-loop-simulation.html, the whole process has been tried with Flightgear version 2.x. Downloaded and installed 2.8.0.5.
• Copied [/MissionPlanner-1.3.17/quadhil.xml] to [/Flightgear 2.8.0.5/data/Protocol/].
• Copied [/MissionPlanner-1.3.17/aircraft/arducopter/] to [/Flightgear 2.8.0.5/data/Aircraft/].
• Copied [MAVLink.xml] to [/Flightgear 2.8.0.5/data/Protocol/] Link to MAVLink.xml:https://github.com/ArduPilot/ardupilot/blob/ArduCopter-2.8.1/Tools/FlightGear/MAVLink.xml
• ArduCopter-v2.px4 hil firmware – http://firmware.ardupilot.org/Copter/stable/PX4-quad-hil/
• Uploaded this firmware on pixhawk using custom firmware option.

Connection Steps:

1. Start Mission Planner 1.3.17.
2. Connect over COM.
3. Click “CONNECT”.
4. Click “Simulation”.
5. Click “Flightgear” radio box.
6. Click “Quad” check box.
7. Click “Start FG Quad”.
8. Wait for Flightgear to finish loading.
9. Click “Sim Link Start/Stop”.
10. Loaded waypoints for planned mission, having takeoff as first command
11. Set mode to Guided.
12. Arming Successful in MP but could not see motors moving in Flightgear.
13. Switch mode to Auto
14. click on start mission – Nothing happens

Alternative Approach Tried:
Also tried to start flightgear from command line.

• Start Mission Planner 1.3.17
• Connect over COM.
• Click “CONNECT”.
• Loaded waypoints for planned mission, having takeoff as first command
•  From Command line start Flightgear by going into fgfs.exe path:

fgfs --fg-root="C:\Program Files\FlightGear\data" --fg=scenery="C:\ProgramFiles\FlightGear\data\Scenery" --geometry=800x600 --aircraft=arducopter --native-fdm=socket,out,50,127.0.0.1,49005,udp --generic=socket,in,50,127.0.0.1,49000,udp,quadhil --fdm=external --prop:/logging/log/filename=fg_record.csv --log-level=info --roll=0 --pitch=0 --wind=0@0 --turbulence=0.0 --prop:/sim/frame-rate-throttle-hz=30 --timeofday=noon --shading-
flat --fog-disable --disable-specular-highlight --disable-skyblend --disable-random-objects --disable-panel --disable-horizon-effect --disable-clouds –disable-anti-alias-hud

• Set mode to Guided.
• Arming Successful in MP but could not see motors moving in Flightgear.
• Switch mode to Auto
• click on start mission – Nothing happens

Please suggest if we are missing something in the HITL Setup steps.

Thanks and Regards,

Saloni Jain

[Tom Pittenger]

HIL has been broken for a while, the latency in the comm links are significant and so it turns out that SITL works better.

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[Saloni Jain]

Thank You Tom for the reply.

We have moved on PX4 firmware for HITL setup and its working fine with QGroundControl and X-Plane 10.

Thanks and Regards,

Saloni

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