how to fly a Parrot bebop drone in tum simulator?

Question

I am working on a school project. I have completed http://bebop-autonomy.readthedocs.io/en/indigo-devel/running.html installation till running the driver. my current package structure is this :

 $ mkdir -p ~/bebop_ws/src && cd ~/bebop_ws
    $ catkin init
    $ git clone https://github.com/AutonomyLab/bebop_autonomy.git src/bebop_autonomy
# Update rosdep database and install dependencies (including parrot_arsdk)
    $ rosdep update
    $ rosdep install --from-paths src -i
# Build the workspace
    $ catkin build -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RelWithDebInfo

I need a simulator to simulate the bebop drone. I have installed Gazebo 2x with ros indigo.And then for simulation, I followed the following instructions to create tum simulator, but permission is denied in the roscd.

$roscd  
$git clone https://github.com/tum-vision/tum_simulator.git  
$export ROS_PACKAGE_PATH=$ROS_PACKAGE_PATH:`pwd`/tum_simulator  
$rosmake cvg_sim_gazebo_plugins  
$rosmake message_to_tf 

If I skip the roscd step and clone tum_simulator, when I run this I am getting the following error :

#"[ rosmake ] WARNING: The following args could not be parsed as stacks or packages: ['cvg_sim_gazebo_plugins']
#[ rosmake ] ERROR: No arguments could be parsed into valid package or stack names.
"

Can somebody help me with starting the tum simulator by your own solution or fixing what I am doing ? If I can use this https://github.com/dougvk/tum_simulator, in which directory should I clone the tumsimulator git ?

Answer 1

Unfortunately the tum_simulator package is for Parrot AR-Drone quadcopters and does not support Bebop. When you are using a simulator, you do not need to run the driver since the simulator replaces the driver and provides a similar API as if you were using the real hardware.

You can remove bebop_autonomy from your workspace (even better, start from scratch in a new workspace) and follow the instructions on how to compile/run tum_simulator on ROS Indigo. The documentation for ardrone_autonomy, the ROS driver for Parrot AR-Drone can be found here.

Answer 2

I was also looking for the similar simulator. Finally, I added the model of Parrot Bebop 2 to ETH RotorS package. You may also give it a try.

git clone https://github.com/ayushgaud/rotors_simulator.git

Currently, I am using their controller but I have added a Gazebo model with most parameters correctly modeled and the front camera mounted.

Answer 3

Most likely I arrived a few years late, but I think it may be useful for future visitors to the page. My colleagues and I, at the University of Sannio in Benevento, Italy, developed a ROS package for simulating the behavior of the Parrot Bebop 2. The ROS package is compatible with both Indigo Igloo and Kinetic Kame distros of ROS. Moreover, we are working to make the code compatible with Parrot Sphinx (it simulates the firmware behavior thus, making it possible to put it in the control loop). Here the link to the repository available on GitHub.

https://github.com/gsilano/BebopS

EDIT January 5, 2020

Now, the ROS package is compatible with the Melodic distro of ROS and Gazebo. Moreover, the package is compatible with ROS Kinetic and both the 7th and 9th releases of Gazebo.