MindPX Dev. Guides

rolandash

1 Starting Hardwares

The equipments below are highly recommended for starter:

A development computer
- A computer with Ubuntu Linux 16.04 or later installed, with minimum an Intel i5 processor. or
- A MAC computer with MACOS 10.12 or later, minimum Intel i5 processor equivalent computing power.
At least 2 USB ports are necessary during the development process.

A drone equipped with MindPX/MindRacer autopilot
- NanoMind is highly recommended for its low cost and safety.

A remote controller
- FlySky i6 is recommended for low cost and compact size.
- Taranis series if you have advanced requirement.

A micro-USB cable
- for firmware uploading, and ground station connection.

A debug cable
- for access to debug console. If you do not want to hand wire the cable, you can get one from here

2 Basic software skills

C/C++ programming skills
Basic understanding of how a Makefile works
Basic version control concept and Git tools usage (and you need a GitHub account, its free.)
Linux system environment (or MACOS) knowledge

rolandash

3 Software setup (Ubuntu)

Development Toolchain

The instructions below show how you can use a bash scripts to setup the developer toolchain on Ubuntu LTS. The scripts install the Qt Creator IDE, Ninja Build System, Common Dependencies, FastRTPS, and also download the OpenMindPX source to your computer (~/src/Firmware).

The scripts have been tested on a clean Ubuntu LTS 16.04 installation. They may not work as expected if installed on top of an existing system or on another Ubuntu release. If you have any problems then follow the manual installation instructions.

First make the user a member of the group "dialout"
1. On the command prompt enter:

sudo usermod -a -G dialout $USER

2. Logout and login again (the change is only made after a new login).
Then follow the instructions for your development target in the sections below.

Download ubuntu_sim_nuttx.sh.
Run the script in a bash shell:
source ubuntu_sim_nuttx.sh
You may need to acknowledge some prompts as the script progresses.
Restart the computer on completion.

rolandash

4 Software Setup (MACOS)

Homebrew Installation

The installation of Homebrew is quick and easy: installation instructions.

Common Tools

After installing Homebrew, run these commands in your shell to install the common tools:

brew tap PX4/px4
brew install px4-dev
# Optional, but recommended additional simulation tools:
brew install px4-sim

If the installation outputs an error message about missing requirements follow the instructions. Your system will be missing Java and Quartz:

brew cask install xquartz java

Install pip if you don't already have it and use it to install the required packages:

sudo easy_install pip
sudo -H pip install pyserial empy toml numpy pandas jinja2 pyyaml

rolandash

5 Build OpenMindPX firmware

Downloading MindPX Source Code

The OpenMindPX source code is stored on Github in the airmind/OpenMindPX repository. We recommend that you fork this repository (creating a copy associated with your own Github account), and then clone the source to your local computer.

Forking the repository allows you to better manage your custom code. Later on you will be able to use git to share changes with the main project.

The steps to fork and clone the project source code are:

Sign up to Github.
Go to the Firmware repository and click the Fork button near the upper right corner. This will create and open the forked repository.

Github Fork button
Copy the repository URL for your Firmware repository fork. The easiest way to do this is to click the Clone or download button and then copy the URL:

Github Clone or download button
Open a command prompt/terminal on your computer
On OS X, hit ⌘-space and search for 'terminal'.
On Ubuntu, click the launch bar and search for 'terminal'.
Clone the repository fork using the copied URL. This will look something like:
```
git clone https://github.com/<youraccountname>/Firmware.git
```
If you're just experimenting (and don't want to make any sort of permanent changes) you can simply clone the main Firmware repository as shown:
```
 git clone https://github.com/airmind/OpenMindPX.git
```

This will copy most of the very latest version of OpenMindPX source code onto your computer (the rest of the code is automatically fetched from other git submodules when you build Pit).

To get the source for a specific older release, you could then:

 # Navigate into Firmware directory
 cd Firmware

 # list the releases (tags)
 git tag -l

 # Checkout code for particular tag (e.g. for tag 1.7.4beta)
 git checkout -b tags/v1.7.4beta

rolandash

7 Build and upload the firmware

Now it is time to get a touch on MindPX hardware!

Connect the hardware
1. connect the USB port on MindPX/MindRacer to computer (mandatory)
2. connect the Debug port on MindPX/MindRacer to computer (optional if you want to see the debug output on your computer)
connect cables

Build the code and upload

#change directory to firmware's root directory
cd OpenMindPX/
make mindpx-v2_default upload

A successful run will end with this output:

Erase  : [====================] 100.0%
Program: [====================] 100.0%
Verify : [====================] 100.0%
Rebooting.

[100%] Built target upload

Watch debug output
A serial monitor software is needed on computer to watch the output from MindPX/MindRacer hardware.
On Linux Minicom is recommended.
On MAC the 'screen' tool is recommended.

screen /dev/tty.usbserial 57600 8N1

Note the '/dev/tty.usbserial' is the device name of the debug cable. It maybe different on different computers. Replace it with what it really appears under /dev directory of your machine.

rolandash

8 Setup IDE (XCode)

rolandash

9 'Airborne!' First MindPX application.