OpenUAV: A UAV Testbed for the CPS and Robotics Community

Matt Schmittle, Anna Lukina, Lukas Vacek, Jnaneshwar Das, Christopher P. Buskirk, Stephen Rees, Janos Sztipanovits, Radu Grosu, Vijay Kumar

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

42 Scopus citations

Abstract

Multirotor Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) have grown in popularity for research and education, overcoming challenges associated with fixed wing and ground robots. Unfortunately, extensive physical testing can be expensive and time consuming because of short flight times due to battery constraints and safety precautions. Simulation tools offer a low barrier to entry and enable testing and validation before field trials. However, most of the well-known simulators today have a high barrier to entry due to the need for powerful computers and the time required for initial set up. In this paper, we present OpenUAV, an open source test bed for UAV education and research that overcomes these barriers. We leverage the Containers as a Service (CaaS) technology to enable students and researchers carry out simulations on the cloud. We have based our framework on open-source tools including ROS, Gazebo, Docker, PX4, and Ansible, we designed the simulation framework so that it has no special hardware requirements. Two use-cases are presented. First, we show how a UAV can navigate around obstacles, and second, we test a multi-UAV swarm formation algorithm. To our knowledge, this is the first open-source, cloud-enabled testbed for UAVs. The code is available on GitHub: Https://github.com/Open-UAV.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationProceedings - 9th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Cyber-Physical Systems, ICCPS 2018
PublisherInstitute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Inc.
Pages130-139
Number of pages10
ISBN (Print)9781538653012
DOIs
StatePublished - Aug 21 2018
Externally publishedYes
Event9th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Cyber-Physical Systems, ICCPS 2018 - Porto, Portugal
Duration: Apr 11 2018Apr 13 2018

Publication series

NameProceedings - 9th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Cyber-Physical Systems, ICCPS 2018

Other

Other9th ACM/IEEE International Conference on Cyber-Physical Systems, ICCPS 2018
Country/TerritoryPortugal
CityPorto
Period4/11/184/13/18

Keywords

  • Aerial robotics
  • simulation
  • uav

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Artificial Intelligence
  • Computer Science Applications
  • Control and Optimization

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