Roadblock integrating a new flight sim into SITL

peterbraswell · January 29, 2016, 9:40pm

All,
I’m really hoping somebody familiar with the codebase can help me.

I’ve got most of the stuff working, however the simulation fails to initialize (mavlink). I’m basing my integration of SilentWings (www.silentwings.no) on the JSBSim module in libraries/SITL/JSBsim.cpp.

I’m doing something wrong or some piece is missing. I don’t understand completely what the JSBSim executable is doing. I see simulation data coming in, which I’ve replicated with data from SilentWings. I’ve set up a port to listen for the RC output from the simulation which seems to be working but the indications from mavlink aren’t consistent with what I see with JSBSim.

My simulation seems to get stuck in the calibrating gyro mode. I see two asterisks after that message and then a series of ‘no link’ messages in mavlink despite my simulation continuing to run.

I feel like I’m close, yet so far away!

Is there any good pieces of documentation that explain the pieces that need to be implemented or more detail about going into how to integrate a new flight sim? Is there a better example that I should be following besides JSBSim?

Many thanks to the brain trust!,
Peter

akolobov · November 6, 2017, 6:57am

Hello Peter,

Have you had any luck with the Silent Wings SITL since this post?

Having used X-Plane for testing soaring algorithms for a while now, I more than appreciate the inadequacy of its thermal simulations, particularly as far as thermal placement and lifecycle is concerned, and was looking at Silent Wings when I discovered this piece about your efforts in the same direction.

In case you are still working on this, I’d be interested in learning how far you’ve gotten and in helping you investigate the initialization issues you’ve described.

Cheers,

Andrey

tridge · June 12, 2019, 7:32am

@peterbraswell I only just saw this msg, sorry. I see there is silentwings support in frigatebird now:

github.com

microsoft/Frigatebird/blob/master/libraries/SITL/SIM_SilentWings.cpp

/*
   This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
   it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
   the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
   (at your option) any later version.

   This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
   but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
   MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
   GNU General Public License for more details.

   You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
   along with this program.  If not, see <http://www.gnu.org/licenses/>.
 */
/*
  simulator connector for ardupilot version of SilentWings
*/

#include "SIM_SilentWings.h"

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would you like that to be integrated back into ArduPilot master? I’d be happy to look at a PR for that, or I could try and bring it in myself.

Gary_Mortimer · July 2, 2019, 7:59am

Any chance a clever person could look at Condor 2, for me currently the best gliding sim