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3. Hardware Setup
This section describes the steps necessary to setup and configure your system in hardware. It assumes you have completed section 1 Getting Started.
ROSflight
Start by going through the ROSflight user guide and setup your flight system.
For best performance, make sure to place the IMU as close to the center of mass as possible. Ideally on the same horizontal level as the rotors. This should improve estimation performance.
RC Override
Make sure to enable an RC override switch on your transmitter by configuring the RC_ATT_OVRD_CHN and RC_THR_OVRD_CHN parameters in ROSflight.
The RC throttle command will override if it is less than the autopilot's commanded throttle. The RC attitude command will override the autopilot's attitude command if the roll, pitch, or yaw sticks are deviated from their center position. See RC safety pilot for more details.
YAML File
Create a YAML file for your flight system. The YAML file is where you can adjust control gains, and estimator parameters. See the quadcopter.yaml file as a reference. This is a good starting point for most quadcopters. Make sure to save your YAML file in the roscopter/params folder
Open the launch file you plan on using to start your system. For indoor flight, open the mocap.launch file. For outdoor flight, open the gps.launch file. These are found in the "roscopter/launch" folder.
Autopilot USB Port
In the launch file, specify which USB port the rosflight_io node should connect to by changing the "port" value in the rosflight_io node block to the appropriate path. By default this value is "/dev/ttyACM0/". Example:
<param name="port" value="PATH_TO_PORT"/>
Flight Vehicle YAML File
Next, specify the YAML file rosparam should load corresponding to your flight vehicle.
<arg name="mav_name" value="quadcopter"/>
"quadcopter" is the default value and searches for quadcopter.yaml.