Develop PX4 custom controller without QGroundControl

Hello, I'm trying to develop a custom controller for my Pixracer R15 autopilot. I followed the MATLAB tutorials and I want to know if is possibile to develop a custom controller and do HITL simulation without using QGroundControl. For example I'm trying to implement the example Position Tracking for X-Configuration Quadcopter in my hardware board instead of PX4 host target. Indeed in this example I can specify some trajectories and modify run-time parameters of the controller, I don't need to specify a mission on QGround I want only that my quadcopter follows some trajectories using the custom controller implemented in my board.

Thanks for help.

Answer 1

[Jianxin Sun]

Hi Paolo,

There are two HITL examples related to your application:

https://www.mathworks.com/help/supportpkg/px4/ref/hitl-simulink-plant-example.html shows how to configure HITL with multirotor dynamics in Simulink

https://www.mathworks.com/help/supportpkg/px4/ref/hitl-simulink-fixed-wing-plant-example.html shows how to configure the UAV to follow pre-defined mission in MATLAB/Simulink for fixed-wing UAV

You probably want to base your setup following the first example, but instead of using mission read block to get mission from QGroundControl, you can use pre-defined mission in MATLAB based on the second example implementation.

Jianxin

[Paolo]

Hi Jianxin,

thansk for the reply. I saw the example for a fixed-wing UAV but I think that there isn't what I'm looking for. I need to simulate my quadcopter dynamics with JMAVSim and run HITL simulation, not in Monitor & Tune mode. So I don't understand how can I do this simulation based on Position Tracking for X-Configuration Quadcopter. All I need is to use my hardware board instead of the one simulatued by Simulink when I use PX4HostTarget as hw board.

So the question is if there is a way to connect my Pixracer with the computer and run the example I mentioned above with my hw board, I didn't understand if I need two serial connection between my board and the computer or if one connection (USB) is enough.

For example if I run the Position Tracking for X-Configuration Quadcopter with Px4HostTarget as hw board and I click on Build, Deploy & Start I see the quadcopter follow the trajectory specified in my Simulink model, I want to do the same thing with JMAVSim but instead of using PX4HostTarget I want to use PixRacer. I don't need any QGroundControl comunication beacuse I specify my trajectory in the Simulink Model like the example Position Tracking for X-Configuration Quadcopter shows.

Thanks again,

Paolo