/piksi_ros

ROS driver for SwiftNav Piksi, currently written in python

Primary LanguagePythonMIT LicenseMIT

Piksi ROS

A python based driver for SwiftNav's Piksi RTK GPS modules.

Features:

  • Publishes:
    • NavSatFix (separate ones for RTK fix and SPP fix)
    • Odometry (with positioning from RTK data)
    • TimeReference
    • as well as custom Observations and Ephemeris msgs.
  • Can send/receive observations from another Piksi through UDP or Serial (for setups that don't use the external radios)
  • Supports setting any of the settings on the piksi at startup (saving to flash is optional)
  • Can publish TF transforms from UTM->base_station and/or base_station->rover
  • Supplies diagnostic info.
  • Keeps track of fix mode through watchdog timers.
  • Dynamic reconfigure support.

Published Topics:

  • ~fix (sensor_msgs/NavSatFix). Best fix available.
  • ~spp_fix (sensor_msgs/NavSatFix). Single point precision fix.
  • ~rtk_fix (sensor_msgs/NavSatFix). RTK fix (when available).
  • ~odom (nav_msgs/Odometry). RTK based odometry.
  • ~time (sensor_msgs/TimeReference). GPS clock (does not match UTC as it does not account for leap seconds)
  • ~observations (piksi_ros/Observations). Satellite observations. Enable through publish_observations parameter.
  • ~ephemeris (piksi_ros/Ephemeris). Satellite observations. Enable through publish_ephemeris parameter.

Parameters:

Parameters with * can be changed through dynamic reconfigure.

Piksi stuff:

  • port - The serial port device of the Piksi unit. Default: /dev/ttyUSB0.
  • baud_rate - Baud rate for the serial port. Default: 1000000.

Piksi hardware settings:

You can have the driver set settings on the piksi at startup. Settings are not committed to device flash unless piksi_save_settings is set appropriately.

  • piksi/SECTION/SETTING - Possible SECTION and SETTING values can be found in Piksi documentation or in the piksi console (subset can be found in piksi_settings.yaml). *
  • piksi_save_settings - Commits piksi settings to device flash if set true. Default: false.

The piksi settings as they were on driver startup can be accessed through the parameter server under ~piksi_original_settings/.

Frames:

  • frame_id - Frame id for GPS messages. Default: piksi
  • rtk_frame_id - Frame id for the base. Default: rtk_gps
  • utm_frame_id - Frame id for an UTM coordinate frame. Default: utm
  • child_frame_id - Frame id for the rover (typically base_link or base_link_stabilized). Default: base_link

Publish settings:

  • publish_utm_rtk_tf - Publish utm_frame_id->rtk_frame_id transform. Default: False
  • publish_rtk_child_tf - Publish rtk_frame_id->child_frame_id transform. Default: False
  • publish_observations - Publish observations (list of tracked satellites and related measurements). Default: False
  • publish_ephemeris - Publish ephemeris information. Default: False

Driver settings:

  • rtk_fix_timeout - Time to wait from last RTK message received until switching to SPP positions for best fix. Default: 0.2 *
  • spp_fix_timeout - Time to wait from last SPP message receveid until declaring no-fix. Default: 1.0 *
  • rtk_h_accuracy - RTK horizontal sddev. Default: 0.04 *
  • rtk_v_accuracy - RTK vertical sddev. Default: 0.12 *

Diagnostics:

  • diag/heartbeat_freq - Expected frequency for heartbeats. Default: 1.0
  • diag/update_freq - Expected update frequency. Default: 10.0
  • diag/freq_tolerance - Frequency tolerance. Default: 0.1
  • diag/window_size - Diagnostics window size. Default: 10
  • diag/min_delay - Min timestamp delay for topics. Default: 0.0
  • diag/max_delay - Max timestamp delay for topics. Default: 0.2

Observation sending/receiving:

  • obs/udp/send - Whether to send observations received from Piksi through UDP. Default: False

  • obs/udp/receive - Whether to receive observations through UDP and forward to Piksi. Default: False

  • obs/udp/host - UDP host/ip. Leave blank for receiver for easier configuration. Default: ''

  • obs/udp/port - UDP port to use. Default: 50785

  • obs/serial/send - Whether to send observations received from Piksi through a serial port. Default: False

  • obs/serial/receive - Whether to receive observations through a serial port and forward to Piksi. Default: False

  • obs/udp/port - Serial port. Default: ''

  • obs/udp/baud_rate - Serial port baud rate. Default: 115200

Other:

  • sbp_log_file - Specify a log file to log all incoming SBP packets from Piksi to. Default: ''
  • debug - Enable extra debug messages. Default: False

Published transforms

The following transforms are published if configured to do so:

  • utm_frame_id -> rtk_frame_id
  • rtk_frame_id -> child_frame_id

Issues/notes:

  • Covariance info is either set by parameters or set by a hack. It does not reflect an instantanious estimate of the covariance.
  • No error-checking when setting parameters.

Todo:

  • Add/improve covariance estimate for published data.
  • Rewrite in C++