Trying to connect a SITL vehicle to a Jetson Nano

Ground Control Software Mission Planner
1

Hello, this question may sound pretty basic but I have been at this for a couple days
now with no luck. Funny thing is I had it working a few months back.but no such luck lately.

Im ultimately trying to control a SITL vehicle with a python script running on my Jetson Nano so that I can test my script on a simulated vehicle. However, right now I am having a heck of a time getting a connection between my laptop which runs Mission Planner and my Nano.

  1. Wifi connection established between Jetson Nano and laptop by adding a WIFI hotspot connection to the jetson, the laptop was subsequently connected to this hotspot.

  2. On laptop, Mission Planner started. The upper righthand “Connect” button pressed. IP address of the laptop entered in the text box, then remote port 5762 selected. (note the baudrate is set to 57600, also note I tried with the default 127.0.0.1 IP as well).

  3. On Jetson, a python program is run which imports “connect” from Dronekit is called using ‘sudo’ and runs the following line:

          vehicle = connect('tcp:172.17.0.1:5762',baud=57600,wait_ready=True)

  4. The Jetson Nano Python program and the Mission Planner connect processes are started roughly simultaneously.

  5. The jetson displays:
    Connect tcp:172.17.0.1:5762 source_system=255
    [Errno 111] Connection refused sleeping
    [Errno 111] Connection refused sleeping
    [Errno 111] Connection refused sleeping
    [Errno 111] Connection refused sleeping
    Failed to connect to tcp:172.17.0.1:5762 : [Errno 111] Connection refused

  6. Meanwhile the mission planner displays “connection failed” in the connection box… Any assistance here would be greatly appreciated. Craig

Configuration;
Windows 11 (running Mission Planner)
Jetson Nano with Jetpack 4.6 installed (and Python3).

2

This is a follow on for anyone experiencing the same problem. The issue is if you want to run SITL in windows and control the vehicle from your companion computer, the thing that confused me is that you need to start the simulated vehicle first, then you need to connect as in the above strategy shown using the IP address of the companion computer and using a different port number (such as 5762) than the one being used by the vehicle which you can see displayed in the upper right in mission planner. This might seem pretty obvious, but believe me I got stuck on this forever.

3

Uhh, 4.6 for Jetson Nano. Is it out already? Hmm. From which jetpack to jetpack 4.6, for your case? Which method did you use to migrate?

For companion computers, I usually connect directly to the flight controller unit and not via MP.

4

Maybe for the Orin but Im running a 2Gb Jetson Nano developer kit. The default install is 4.6.1 on the NVIDIA setup page. I am running 4.6 because I have alot of complex dependencies and dont want to break my system. I dont understand your response that you connect to the flight controller, I have never run the simulator with the flight controller attached I thought the concept was to replace the flight controller to debug your companion computer code??

5

We fly the companion computer with the Flight controller Unit in the air. We connect Jetson Orin NX via Uart/serial port @921600bps.

We debug via direct router wifi connection, via SSH, WinSCP, VNC.

for Lua script, I use MP Simulator.

I didn’t read how you physical connect between jetson Orin Nano and flight controller unit.

You maybe interested in Holybro Pixhawk Jetson Baseboard.