These packages are used to simulate the flying robot Ardrone in ROS environment using gazebo simulator. Totally they are 4 packages. Their functions are descript as below:

1. cvg_sim_gazebo: contains object models, sensor models, quadrocopter models, flying environment information and individual launch files for each objects and pure environment without any other objects.

2. cvg_sim_gazebo_plugins: contains gazebo plugins for the quadrocopter model. quadrotor_simple_controller is used to control the robot motion and deliver navigation information, such as: /ardrone/navdata. Others are plugins for sensors in the quadrocopter, such as: IMU sensor, sonar sensor, GPS sensor.

3. message_to_tf: is a package used to create a ros node, which transfers the ros topic /ground_truth/state to a /tf topic.

4. cvg_sim_msgs: contains message forms for the simulator.

Some packages are based on the tu-darmstadt-ros-pkg by Stefan Kohlbrecher, TU Darmstadt.

This package depends on ardrone_autonomy package and gazebo7 so install these first.

How to install the simulator:

1. Install gazebo7 and ardrone_autonomy package

2. Create a workspace for the simulator

   mkdir -p ~/ardrone_simulator/src
   cd  ~/ardrone_simulator/src
   catkin_init_workspace
   

3. Download package

   git clone https://github.com/iolyp/ardrone_simulator_gazebo7
   

4. Build the simulator

   cd ..
   catkin_make
   

5. Source the environment

   source devel/setup.bash
   

How to run a simulation:

1. Run a simulation by executing a launch file in cvg_sim_gazebo package:

   roslaunch cvg_sim_gazebo ardrone_testworld.launch
   

How to run a simulation using ar_track_alvar tags:

1. Move the contents of ~/ardrone_simulator/src/cvg_sim_gazebo/meshes/ar_track_alvar_tags/ to ~/.gazebo/models

2. Run simulation

   roslaunch cvg_sim_gazebo ar_tag.launch