Hardware Deployment Process

[evan-palmer]

This is a question posed by @markusbuchholz regarding deployment to hardware:

but if you have some quick feedback regarding the vehicle controller that accepts cmd_vel.

The ISMC isn't responding to thruster commands after publishing the command:

ros2 topic pub /blue/ismc/cmd_vel geometry_msgs/msg/Twist '{linear: {x: 1.0, y: 0.0, z: 0.0}, angular: {x: 0.0, y: 0.0, z: 0.0}}'

However, sending the following command does appear to be working:

ros2 topic pub /mavros/rc/override mavros_msgs/msg/OverrideRCIn

Do you have any comments or suggestions regarding this?

[evan-palmer]

To use the ISMC, you will need to set the thrusters to "passthrough mode" and arm the controller. You can do this using the arm.sh script. I recommend exercising EXTREME caution when using that controller and passthrough mode. Passthrough mode disables all ArduSub arming and safety checks. I would also encourage you to do some comprehensive testing of the localization system to verify that the state information isn't too delayed or inaccurate. The ISMC controller is pretty sensitive to those things. If you can hold off a few days, I am getting ready to submit a PR that makes some improvements to the stability of the controller and makes it easier to use things (with new documentation!):

• auv_controllers
• ardusub_driver

Can you talk a little bit about what you are hoping to accomplish with velocity control @markusbuchholz? If you are planning to write a new controller and use the ISMC as a benchmark, then I would recommend trying the auv_controllers project above. If you just need velocity control, then you may be interested in trying out the ArduSub GUIDED mode which has recently added support for velocity control