Extending QGroundControl for Automated Mission Planning of UAVs

Abstract

Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAVs) have become very popular in the last decade due to some advantages such as strong terrain adaptation, low cost, zero casualties, and so on. One of the most interesting advances in this field is the automation of mission planning (task allocation) and real-time replanning, which are highly useful to increase the autonomy of the vehicle and reduce the operator workload. These automated mission planning and replanning systems require a Human Computer Interface (HCI) that facilitates the visualization and selection of plans that will be executed by the vehicles. In addition, most missions should be assessed before their real-life execution. This paper extends QGroundControl, an open-source simulation environment for flight control of multiple vehicles, by adding a mission designer that permits the operator to build complex missions with tasks and other scenario items; an interface for automated mission planning and replanning, which works as a test bed for different algorithms, and a Decision Support System (DSS) that helps the operator in the selection of the plan. In this work, a complete guide of these systems and some practical use cases are provided.

Current Practices in UAS-based Environmental Monitoring

“…The APM Planner 2 allows the connection of a 3DR Radio to view live data and to initiate commands in flight. The QGroundControl GCS is an open-source simulation environment for full flight control and multiple vehicle setup and simultaneous control [67]. UgCs can import DEM and KML files to enable map customization, and have a built-in photogrammetry planning tool and option to resume the route from the last point after the battery change.…”

Multi-UAS Minimum Time Search in Dynamic and Uncertain Environments

“…An important difference that distinguishes this integration process with QGround-Control GCS from the integration with Airbus R&T GCS is that our planner works in conjunction with the mission planner of other thesis (TD04). Hence, in this case, the higher level mission planner of TD04 thesis optimizes the resources and order of several tasks such as escorting a path, mapping or target search missions and is integrated as a plug-in of the QGroundControl GCS, as detailed in (Ramirez-Atencia and Camacho, 2018). The scenarios of the search mission tasks are sent by the taskmission planner to the MTS Planner, which is in charge of optimizing the UAVs search trajectories and of sending them back to the GCS.…”

“…The successful integration of the MTS Planner with two different GCS shows the generality of our planner. More specifically, the integration with Airbus GCS allowed to test the contributions of this thesis with a complex system developed by Airbus following NATO standards, while the integration with QGroundControl GCS allowed to show the capabilities of MTS algorithms with multiple UAVs and how the planner can be used in conjunction with a higher level mission planner, described in (Ramirez-Atencia and Camacho, 2018). Besides, both integrations follow a similar information flow.…”

Porting Ardupilot to Esp32: Towards a Universal Open-Source Architecture for Agile and Easily Replicable Multi-Domains Mapping Robots

“…In 2013, they joined the DroneCode initiative, a nonprofit organization governed by the Linux Foundation which aims to encourage open-source development for UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles). This allowed these two autopilots to take full advantage of other projects that can be found in the fold of DroneCode such as MAVLink (Micro Air Vehicle Link), a communication protocol (Koubaa et al, 2019) and QGroundControl, a mission planning and monitoring software (Ramirez-Atencia, Camacho, 2018). From 2016, Ardupilot remained in the spirit of free code by keeping the GPL license, while PX4 and the other projects federated by DroneCode went into BSD license in order to market their solutions (source codes can then become proprietary codes).…”