====== Controlling the Ar.Drone with the Brown-ROS Package ======

===== Introduction =====

In this tutorial you will learn how to fly the [[http://ardrone.parrot.com/parrot-ar-drone/usa/|ARDrone]] from Parrot using ROS.
ROS(Robotics Operating System) is an open source tool for creating robot applications. It saves a lot of development time and in the same time help to create robust real time softwares for ones project.

Before you take this tutorial, I suggest you to go through the basics of ROS and also to install ROS itself [[http://www.ros.org/wiki/|here]]. This tutorial uses **ROS-ELECTRIC and the OS used is Ubuntu 10.10**. After you downloaded ROS go [[http://code.google.com/p/brown-ros-pkg/source/checkout|here]] and download the Brown-ros stack which could be done by opening up a terminal and enter:

  svn checkout http://brown-ros-pkg.googlecode.com/svn/trunk/brown-ros-pkg-read-only

===== Necessary Packages =====

Before we go for the test of ARDRONE make sure you have the following packages.In a terminal, type:

  roscd ardrone_brown

Make sure you are taken to the respective package's folder if not you have to download the corresponding package.Likewise enter(in the same terminal)
    
  roscd drone_teleop
  roscd image_view

===== Making The Package =====

Now the packages are at place we are going to make it and create a driver file.

Step 1: Go to /brown-ros-pkg-read-only/experimental/ardrone_brown (using the terminal)
Step 2: In the terminal enter the following commands(one after the other):

  sh build_sdk.sh 
  cmake .
  rosmake

Make sure you receive 0 failures at the end of rosmake.
There are possibilities that you may run into some problems if you are plan to use ROS-Fuerte(latest version of ROS). I personally have not tried that yet.

Step 3: If everything went well right you should be seeing a driver file named "ardrone_driver" in the bin folder.

===== Interface your computer with the ARDRONE =====

Step 1: Switch on the ARDRONE and wait for the led lights on the ardrone to turn green
Step 2: Open up a terminal(ctrl+alt+T)  and enter :

  roscore

Step 3:Open up an other terminal and enter:

  rosrun ardrone_brown ardrone_driver

Step 4: Again in a new terminal enter:

  rosrun drone_teleop drone_teleop.py

Step 5:Open up a terminal and enter :

  rosrun image_view image_view image:=/ardrone/image_raw 

This should give a video feed from the ardrone

Step 6: If all of the above steps are successful, you should be able to control the drone using the drone_teleop portal. Here is a video of the ARDRONE being controlled using the Brown ROS package

===== Video =====

{{youtube>6M-ejG2kfRk?large}}