Adding a payload connected to swarm

[louiseracielle]

Hi, @gsilano!

I want to add a payload that is connected to the Crazyflie robots while still being able to control them individually. Is there any way to do this?

I’ve tried creating my own model where I spawned four Crazyflie robots and attached a platform, but I found that it will only takeoff when the {robot_namespace}/base_link is the parent link of a joint. Doing so, however, will cause an error since the macro I created it in is being called four times, making each base_link a root link.

Thank you.

[gsilano]

Hi @louiseracielle! Regarding your question, you could take a look at the crazyflie2_internal_model_controller_vi_sensor.launch example in the rotors_gazebo/launch folder. In this example, a Visual Inertial Odometry sensor is attached to the body of the drone. So, you could follow the track, i.e., from the crazyflie2_internal_model_controller_vi_sensor.launch to the spawn_mav_crazyflie.launch, and then crazyflie2_base.xacro in the rotors_description/urdf folder to understand how I handled it.

I think that reading the book chapter can help you understand how to include a sensor, and in your case a payload, to the Crazy. Roughly speaking, what is the structure of the software framework. Also, I recommend you to read the contents of this page to learn more about links and joints.

By model you mean simulation, launch file, right? If so, I do not understand what you did. Could you be more precise? Could you link here a video of your work? Please, note that the available controller does not allow controlling the behavior of the Crazyflie when an additional mass is added to the system. Also, the available controller only implements a hovering example. Please, take a look at the past issues to understand more about this.

[stale]

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