Flying

Pre-Flight Checklist

  1. Ensure that the inventory.ini file has all of the hostnames of the drones under [drones]. This selects the drones that the operators are done on.
    1. Ensure that the gcs_url variable in the preflight ansible (/path/to/swarmnxtrepo/ansible/drones_preflight.yml) is set to the correct hostname or IP address of the ground station.
  2. Run the pre-flight ansible: cd /path/to/swarmnxtrepo/ansible && ansible-playbook -i inventory.ini drones_preflight.yml -K. This will start or check:
    1. The position estimation services on each drone
    2. The mavros service on each drone. This provides information to QGroundControl, and the other services that mavros provides
    3. Checks if chronyc is tracking. This is currently just a boolean check, but can be expanded later to check latency.
  3. Open QGroundControl. Ensure every drone is connected.
  4. Check the EKF Tracking for each drone
  5. Check the ping between each drone and the ground station, both ways (TODO: Automate)
  6. Check the batteries are charged (TODO: Automate)
  7. Check that the rotors are not obstructed by any cables, and all cables are well-connected

Optional: Run an Update

You can run an update by going to the ansible/ directory and running the following command: 

ansible-playbook -i inventory.ini drones_update.yml -K

This will update apt repositories, pull the latest version of ros packages, and build them.

Terminal