tello_ros
is a ROS2 driver for Tello and Tello EDU drones.
There are 4 ROS packages:
tello_driver
is a C++ ROS node that connects to the dronetello_msgs
is a set of ROS messagestello_description
contains robot description (URDF) filestello_gazebo
can be used to simulate a Tello drone in Gazebo, see theREADME.md
in that package for details
The driver is designed to very simple while making it easy to integrate Tello drones into the ROS ecosystem.
The driver communicates with the drone using the Tello SDK, which has several advantages:
- The SDK is documented, and there's quite a bit of development activity around it, so it's likely to be stable.
- The SDK is text-based, which means that
tello_ros
can be simple but still provide full access to the SDK by passing arbitrary strings to the drone.
Many Tello commands (e.g., takeoff
and land
) are long-running, and the drone returns ok
or error
on completion.
The driver provides the ROS service tello_command
to initiate commands,
and the corresponding ROS topic tello_response
to indicate command completion.
Per ROS convention, the driver also responds to Twist
messages on the cmd_vel
topic.
These are translated into rc
commands and sent to the drone.
Velocity values are arbitrarily mapped from [-1.0, 1.0] to [-100, 100].
This may change in the future.
The driver parses telemetry data and sends it on the flight_data
topic.
The presence of telemetry data is a good indicator that the drone is connected.
The driver parses the video stream and sends images on the image_raw
topic.
Camera information is sent on the camera_info
topic.
The Tello drones have a sophisticated visual odometry system and an onboard IMU, but there's minimal access to these internal systems. The driver does not publish odometry.
Additional notes:
- Only one command may be running at a time.
- If a command (other than
rc
) is currently running, incomingcmd_vel
messages are ignored. - Tello drones do not send responses for
rc
commands, and neither does the driver. - The driver sends
command
andstreamon
commands at startup to initiate telemetry and video. - If telemetry or video stops, the driver will attempt to restart by sending
command
andstreamon
commands. - Roll (
Twist.angular.x
) and pitch (Twist.angular.y
) are ignored incmd_vel
messages. - The driver doesn't keep track of state, so it will happily send
rc
messages to the drone even if it's on the ground. The drone just ignores them. - You can send arbitrary strings to the drone via the
tello_command
service. - Tello drones auto-land if no commands are received within 15 seconds.
The driver sends a
rc 0 0 0 0
command after 12 seconds of silence to avoid this.
~tello_action
tello_msgs/TelloAction
~cmd_vel
geometry_msgs/Twist
~tello_response
std_msgs/String~flight_data
tello_msgs/FlightData~image_raw
sensor_msgs/Image~camera_info
sensor_msgs/CameraInfo
The defaults work well for a single Tello drone.
Name | Description | Default |
---|---|---|
drone_ip |
Send commands to this IP address | 192.168.10.1 |
drone_port |
Send commands to this UDP port | 8889 |
command_port |
Send commands from this UDP port | 38065 |
data_port |
Flight data (Tello state) will arrive on this UDP port | 8890 |
video_port |
Video data will arrive on this UDP port | 11111 |
Set up a Ubuntu 20.04 box or VM.
Also install asio:
sudo apt install libasio-dev
Install ROS2 Foxy with the ros-foxy-desktop
option.
If you install binaries, be sure to also install the development tools and ROS tools from the source installation instructions.
Install these additional packages:
sudo apt install ros-foxy-cv-bridge ros-foxy-camera-calibration-parsers
Download, compile and install tello_ros
:
mkdir -p ~/tello_ros_ws/src
cd ~/tello_ros_ws/src
git clone https://github.com/enescanguven/tello_ros.git
git clone https://github.com/ptrmu/ros2_shared.git
cd ..
source /opt/ros/foxy/setup.bash
# If you didn't intall Gazebo, skip tello_gazebo while building:
colcon build --event-handlers console_direct+ --packages-skip tello_gazebo
The driver provides a simple launch file that will allow you to fly the drone using a wired XBox One gamepad.
Turn on the drone, connect to TELLO-XXXXX
via wi-fi, and launch ROS:
cd ~/tello_ros_ws
source install/setup.bash
ros2 launch tello_driver teleop_launch.py
Hit the XBox One menu button to take off, and the view button to land.
If you don't have an XBox One gamepad, you can send commands using the ROS2 CLI:
ros2 service call /tello_action tello_msgs/TelloAction "{cmd: 'takeoff'}"
ros2 service call /tello_action tello_msgs/TelloAction "{cmd: 'rc 0 0 0 20'}"
ros2 service call /tello_action tello_msgs/TelloAction "{cmd: 'land'}"
ros2 service call /tello_action tello_msgs/TelloAction "{cmd: 'battery?'}"
You can also send cmd_vel
messages:
ros2 topic pub /cmd_vel geometry_msgs/Twist # Sends rc 0 0 0 0
ros2 topic pub /cmd_vel geometry_msgs/Twist "{linear: {x: 0.0, y: 0.0, z: 0.0}, angular: {x: 0.0, y: 0.0, z: 0.2}}"
- Tello
- Firmware v01.04.35.01, SDK v1.3
- Tello EDU
- Firmware v02.04.69.03, SDK v2.0
tello_ros
was developed along with several other projects while ROS2 was rapidly changing.
All of the related projects adopted similar conventions around branch names:
- the
master
branch works with the latest ROS2 release (Foxy as of this writing) - there may be branches for older ROS2 versions, such as
crystal
,dashing
oreloquent
The following projects and branches were tested together:
- ROS2 Foxy with fiducial_vlam:
- git clone https://github.com/ptrmu/ros2_shared.git
- git clone https://github.com/ptrmu/fiducial_vlam.git
- git clone https://github.com/clydemcqueen/tello_ros.git
- git clone https://github.com/clydemcqueen/flock2.git
The h264decoder is from: https://github.com/DaWelter/h264decoder
- Tello User Manual 1.4
- SDK 1.3 for Tello, see the errata below
- SDK 2.0 for Tello EDU, see the errata below
- Tello EDU Mission Pad Guide (SDK 2.0) for Tello EDU
- Tello Pilots Developer Forum is a good developer community
- Tello drones do not respond to
rc
commands (the SDK suggests that they returnok
orerror
)