slimbridge

Slim mavlink bridge exposing mavlink based serial interface to UDP world. This repository aims to provide a minimal code base for defining a bridge between serial and UDP interfaces. It tries to provide an alternative for the feature rich prominent prevalent solutions. Extensions and improvements are welcome in any form without adding features exceeding the forwarding application.

Features:

• Establish connection to compile time defined hotspot
• Forward UDP to UART interface
• Forward UART to UDP interface

Usage

Build & Flash using PlatformIO

Flash to the microcontroller by using the following commands under the directory ./firmware

platformio run -e esp01_1m -t upload

Note: Specific port platformio run -e esp01_1m -t upload --upload-port /dev/ttyUSB0 and platformio run -e esp01_1m -t clean.

Connect via mavros

Use mavros with the connection url

roslaunch mavros px4.launch fcu_url:=udp://:[email protected]:UDP_CLIENT_PORT

Note: You can find the parameters under firmware/include/config.h.

Configuration

Adjust the following code segment excerpt in main.cpp under firmware/src to your liking.

// Main.cpp line 14f
IPAddress IP(192, 168, 3, 14);
IPAddress GATEWAY(192, 168, 3, 1);
IPAddress SUBNET(255, 255, 255, 0);
IPAddress DNS(1, 1, 1, 1);

WiFi.config(IP, GATEWAY, SUBNET, DNS, 0U);
WiFi.begin("yourssid", "yourpassword");

Note: Additionally you can adjust the bridge UART and UDP configuration constants under config.h.

Multi-Vehicle Setup:

In order to connect to multiple vehicles from the same workstation, each ESP needs to be configured with a separate UDP_HOST_PORT.

Note: that the vehicle's slimbridge is written with the perspective of the HOST being a external workstation and the vehicle being the CLIENT. This means that the UDP_CLIENT_PORT can be the same, as long as each vehicle has its unique IP in the network.

Setup

For details about the hardware setup see the wiring guide.

1. Initialise the repository with
   • git submodule update --init --recursive
2. Install platformio with
   • pip install platformio
3. (optional) install visual studio code extension here (in VSC under extensions PlatformIO IDE)
4. (optional) install esptool to flash binaries
   • cd resources/esptool && python setup.py install

Contribution

Any contribution is welcome. If you find missing instructions or something did not work as expected please create an issue and let me know.

License

See the LICENSE file for details of the available open source licensing.