Nest Server (v2)

Nest: Mobile Drone Port Client Server Application

An app from the IMPRESS Lab at Mississippi State University

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About the Project
- Built With
Getting Started
- Prerequisites
- Installation
Roadmap
Contributing
Contact

About The Project

This is an application for the IMPRESS Labs.

We are developing a drone Nest for fully autonomous operations (no human intervention). Two drones can autonomously take off and land simultaneously, and their batteries are replaced by a robotic arm. The Nest is solar powered so it is self sustainable. Users can load pre-planned missions and the Nest allows collection of consistent repeatable data. With battery replacement by the robotic arm, drones are almost constantly available. The Nest also serves as data storage and connectivity during remote operations. It also includes several sensors and weather station for constant monitoring itself and environment around it.

The application will:

Display video feed of the Nest
Control the mechanical aspects of the Nest
Keep a log of commands and errors
Display visualization of the drone
Act as a server to allow multiple clients to connect to the Nest

Built With

Python 3.7.4
Flask - This creates the video server
PyQt5 - This is used to create the user interface
Selenium - This is used to communicate with the PLC
Matplotlib - This creates the drone landing plot in pad_plot.py
Pillow - This is used to store the drone landing image as a .jpg image.

Getting Started

Here are the instructions for setting up the app locally.

Prerequisites

Python 3.7+ installed with the following libraries
- Flask
- PyQt5 with QtWebEngineWidgets
- Selenium
- Cv2 (Open CV)
- Pillow

To install these dependencies, run the following commands:

# Install in one line

pip3 install Flask PyQt5 PyQtWebEngine selenium opencv-python Pillow

# Or seperately

pip install Flask
pip install PyQt5
pip install PyQtWebEngine
pip install selenium
pip install opencv-python
pip install Pillow

Installation

Clone the repo

git clone https://github.com/impress-msu/NestApp.git

Modify the following strings in StringConstants.py

# Server configuration variables, these should match your machine
SERVER_IP_ADDRESS = "192.168.0.6"
VIDEO_COMMAND_PORT = 8000
IMAGE_PORT = 8001

...
# Direct path of chromedriver which can be downloaded from https://sites.google.com/a/chromium.org/chromedriver/ 
CHROMEDRIVERLOCATION = '/Users/laure/chromedriver'
PLCURL = 'http://192.168.99.3/'

Open repo in prefered Python editor
Build and run the app
```
python app.py
```
Build and run the client
```
python app.py
```

Development

The first step to developing on this application is to ensure that the string constants are correct. These are located in StringConstants.py. Set the SERVER_IP_ADDRESS to the IPv4 address of the machine to run the server. Also be sure to download a Chromedriver from Chromium.org and update the CHROMEDRIVERLOCATION variable to the correct location. The Chromedriver is required to use Selenium and access the PLC.

# Server configuration variables, these should match your machine
SERVER_IP_ADDRESS = "192.168.0.6"
VIDEO_COMMAND_PORT = 8000
IMAGE_PORT = 8001

...
# Direct path of chromedriver which can be downloaded from https://sites.google.com/a/chromium.org/chromedriver/ 
CHROMEDRIVERLOCATION = '/Users/laure/chromedriver'
PLCURL = 'http://192.168.99.3/'

When developing off site, it is required to ensure that the PlcClient is set to development node. This will prevent the server from trying to access the PLC. To put the application into development mode, navigate to MachineStatus.py and change the following lines:

Change lines 31-36:

        # PlcClient
        # self.plc = PlcClient()          # This is for production mode
        self.plc = PlcClientDev()       # This is for development mode. It makes a client with empty functions
        self.plc.login("PLC")           # Login with password PLC
        self.plc.initButtons()          # Gets button information from the PlcClient browser window

To:

        # PlcClient
        self.plc = PlcClient()          # This is for production mode
        # self.plc = PlcClientDev()       # This is for development mode. It makes a client with empty functions
        self.plc.login("PLC")           # Login with password PLC
        self.plc.initButtons()          # Gets button information from the PlcClient browser window

Important files

MachineStatus.py - a class that holds the status of the machine, determines which actions are possible, and performs them using an instance of the PlcClient class. It is called by videoAppRoutes.py
PlcClient.py - PlcClient is responsible for using Selenium to interact with the PLC webserver and pass commands to the PLC. It has two modes: PlcClientDev for developing off site and PlcClient for developing on site.
StringConstants.py - houses all the important string constants for the application. This should be modified.
app.py - runs flasklocal.py
camera.py - sets up the camera and video feed
client.py - creates the desktop client for the application. This is to be run independently from app.py
flasklocal.py - sets up the Server UI and mounts the Flask server
imageAppRoutes.py - defines the routes for the Drone landing images
pad_plot.py - creates the drone landing images
videoAppRoutes.py - defines the command and video routes

Roadmap

See the open issues for a list of proposed features (and known issues).

Contributing

Fork the Project
Create your Feature Branch (git checkout -b feature/AmazingFeature)
Commit your Changes (git commit -m 'Add some AmazingFeature')
Push to the Branch (git push origin feature/AmazingFeature)
Open a Pull Request

Contact

IMPRESS Lab - @impress_lab - email@example.com

Project Link: https://github.com/impress-msu/NestApp

lpjune/NestServerV2