Interactive drone controlled - cross-platform

[PieterBecking]

Drone Examples

This directory contains examples of drone simulations using the Genesis framework.

Available Examples

1. Interactive Drone (interactive_drone.py)

A real-time interactive drone simulation where you can control the drone using keyboard inputs:

• ↑ (Up Arrow): Move Forward (North)
• ↓ (Down Arrow): Move Backward (South)
• ← (Left Arrow): Move Left (West)
• → (Right Arrow): Move Right (East)
• ESC: Quit

Run with:

python interactive_drone.py -v

2. Automated Flight (fly.py)

A pre-programmed drone flight simulation that follows a predefined trajectory stored in fly_traj.pkl.

Run with:

python fly.py -v  # -v flag enables visualization

Technical Details

• The drone model used is the Crazyflie 2.X (urdf/drones/cf2x.urdf)
• Base hover RPM is approximately 14468
• Movement is achieved by varying individual rotor RPMs to create directional thrust
• The simulation uses realistic physics including gravity and aerodynamics
• Visualization is optimized for macOS using threaded rendering

Controls Implementation

The interactive drone uses differential RPM control:

• Forward/Backward movement: Adjusts front/back rotor pairs
• Left/Right movement: Adjusts left/right rotor pairs
• All movements maintain a stable hover while creating directional thrust
• RPM changes are automatically clipped to safe ranges (0-25000 RPM)

Edit: thank you for open-sourcing this project. Really awesome work!

[zhouxian]

Does it work only on macos or cross-platform? if the latter would be great to merge it

[PieterBecking]

@zhouxian I think it should work cross-platform (keyboard input with pynput), however think it's good to test that before merging. As I'm on macOS, I followed the rendering framework of examples/render_on_macos.py.

[peteryxu]

nice example.. I copied and posted the code into seperate files. was able to run the fly.py. For the interactive_drone.py, I was able to launch, saw the viewer, but the arrow control did not work for me. I am on Macbook pro M4. did not see error in std out. Any insight why this would be the case?

[YilingQiao]

Hi Pieter,

Thank you for your great PR!

I tried your code, and it works perfectly. For security reasons, I removed the pickle and embedded the trajectory directly into the code. I also added an argument to support visualization on Linux. Additionally, I formatted the code using Black to ensure it passes CI. Thank you again for your contribution!

I’ve created a PR to your branch. Please try it out and let me know if it causes any issues.

[PieterBecking]

@YilingQiao Thank you for the improvement. I like the option of the mac flag for platform selection. Works like a charm!

[PieterBecking]

@zhouxian Works cross-platform now

[zhouxian]

@YilingQiao could you make final approval?

[YilingQiao]

@PieterBecking We really appreciate your time and help.
Could you please take a few additional steps:

1. Add an explanation for the -m argument in the README.
2. Use black examples/drone to format the code so it can pass the CI.

After those I will merge this PR. Thank you!

[OIEIEIO]

Ubuntu 24 - python interactive_drone.py --vis
Screencast from 2024-12-22 11-44-36.webm