Aerial Autonomy Stacks

Based on this discussion in Discourse and our startup meeting, we can define an aerial autonomy stack as follows:

An aerial autonomy robotics stack is a collection of building blocks that enable the development of autonomous aerial vehicles, by providing a modular and scalable architecture for sensing, perception, planning, and control tasks. It allows unmanned aerial vehicles to perform complex missions without human intervention, while accommodating different hardware configurations and simulation environments.

Comparison

From the paper

Fernandez-Cortizas, Miguel, et al. "Aerostack2: A Software Framework for Developing Multi-robot Aerial Systems." arXiv preprint arXiv:2303.18237 (2023).

the following autonomy stack table was extracted and adapted.

Flight stack	OS/OC	Modular	Tested in	Middleware	last update	MF	RO	MA	MP	PO
Aerostack	✓	✓	S,RIL,ROL	ROS	10/2021	✗	✓	✓	✓	✗
Aerostack2	✓	✓	S,RIL,ROL	ROS 2	03/2023	✓	✓	✓	✓	✓
AerialCore	✓	✓	S,RIL,ROL	ROS	03/2023	✓	✓	✓	✗	✓
Agilicious	✓	✓	S,RIL	ROS	03/2023	✗	✓	✗	✗	✗
KumarRobotics	✓	✗	S,RIL,ROL	ROS	12/2022	✗	✓	✗	✓	✗
CrazyChoir	✓	✗	S,RIL	ROS 2	02/2023	✗	✓	✓	✗	✗
UAL	✓	✗	S,RIL,ROL	ROS	12/2022	✓	✗	✗	✓	✗
XTDrone	✓	✓	S	ROS	03/2023	✗	✓	✗	✗	✗
RotorS	✓	✓	S	ROS	07/2021	✗	✓	✗	✗	✗
GAAS	✓	✓	S	ROS	10/2021	✗	✗	✗	✗	✗
MRS AUV System	✓	✓	S,RIL,ROL	ROS	09/2023	✓	✓	✓	✓	✗
Crazyswarm	✓	✗	S,RIL	ROS	12/2022	✗	✓	✓	✗	✗
Crazyswarm2	✓	✓	S,RIL	ROS 2	09/2023	✗	✓	✓	✗	✓

Abbrivations * OS/OC: Open source or Open code * S: Experiments in simulation * RIL: Experiments in the lab * ROL: Experiments outside the lab * MF: Multi-frame * RO: Rate output * MA: Multi agent * MP: Multi platform * PO: Plugin oriented

VIO packages

Visual Inertial Odometry packages is an very important strategy of positioning within GPS deprived environments. Since UAVs can not use wheel odometry and heavily relient on cameras, this is one of the main drivers for autonomous exploration with these vehicles.

Here is a list of VIO packages that people can use if they have a depth camera on their platform.

• OpenVins (ROS1/ROS2):
• VINS-Fusion stand alone
• SLAMcore stand alone SDK
• ORB-SLAM3 ROS2

Visual Odometry Datasets

• Kaggle Zurich Urban Micro Aerial Vehicle
• Kaggle Underwater forward-looking VI dataset
• The Air Lab Datasets
• VICON ROS2 bag file Google drive
• The UZH FPV Dataset

Working list autonomy stacks

This is just a list of autonomy stacks with links, such that later we can add them to the overview.

Working list:

• Aerostack2
• Aerostack(1)
• KumarRobotics Autonomy Stack
• Agilicious
• Crazyswarm2
• Crazyswarm(1)
• MRS UAV System
• Hector quadrotor
• RotorS
• RISE paper
• MRS AUV System
• Clover
• /HKUST-Aerial-Robotics

Partial autonomy packages

A list of packages which don't comprise a full stack but do offer value on top of basic flight controller firmware.

• MAVROS Controllers

Indoor navigation packages

Given the above Aerial Autonomy Stacks, the list below outlines specific implementations of indoor navigation software packages in ROS, running on aerial vehicle platforms. The list, though not exhaustive, provides a good overview of available off-the-shelf non-commercial software.

Package name	OS/OC	Sensors required	Middleware	Simulator	Platform/controller	Last updated
Ardupilot ROS	✓	LiDAR	ROS 2	Gazebo	Iris coptor,Ardupilot	02/2024
as2_behaviour_tree	✓	Unknown	ROS 2	Gazebo	Crazyflie,DJI,Tello	02/2024
Teach-Repeat-Replan	✓	Stereo camera	ROS 1	MockaFly	DJI N3	11/2020
rtabmap	✓	Stereo camera	ROS 1	Gazebo	PX4	05/2023
ORB_SLAM_3	✓	Mono/stereo camera	ROS 1	N/A	Bebop 2	06/2023
relative_nav	✗	Stereo camera	ROS 1	N/A	Rotorcraft	04/2017
zephyr	✓	LiDAR	ROS 1	RotorS/Gazebo	AscTec Firefly	11/2018
tum_ardrone	✓	Mono camera	ROS 1	N/A	AR.Drone	05/2014
kr_autonomous_flight	✓	Stereo camera/LiDAR/IMU	ROS 1	Gazebo	Pixhawk	08/2023
px4_sim_ros2	✓	Stereo camera	ROS 2	Gazebo	PX4	04/2024
pidrone_pkg	✓	Mono camera/IR	ROS 1	N/A	Duckiedrone	05/2024