Virtual Drone Environments

Virtual environments can be created corresponding to CentMesh drones, in which the entire drone is represented as a computational entity. This allows development and debugging of programs to proceed without having an actual drone to test on every step of the way.

A virtual drone environment runs as a Virtual Machine on commodity computing equipment. In such a case, the airframe is replaced with a physics simulation in that VM, the autopilot by the software that actually autopilot but running in the VM, and VM itself acts as the Mobile Node platform.

There are currently three ways of obtaining such a VM.

• An image has been created by the CentMesh development team, and made available through the ​NCSU Virtual Computing Laboratory (VCL) . Refer to VCL documentation for details on how to receive and use access to VCL. In VCL, make a reservation for the image called "APM_Copter_3DRobotics_SITL_Image" . (Access to this image is currently restricted; if you don't have access and want to, contact the CentMesh management team - see main CentMesh website for details.)

• You can build your own image. Start with the HardWare/MobileNode page, and build a VM with the same OS and software packages as specified on that page for the BeagleBone Black. Then go to the Drones/Autopilot page, and follow the instructions for installing the SITL, which will install both the autopilot software and the physical simulation.

• Kyle Bond has kindly made a Virtual Box VM image (that he built by following the above procedure) for public use. We are glad to host it here - thanks, Kyle! Please direct any questions about this image to Kyle at kabond@… . It is shared through GoogleApps@NCState. NCSU folks can access it ​here.