[ros-users] How can I benefit from ROS, Quadrotor ArduCopter…

Hi,

I'd like to create a Flight Control System using visual feedback with
ArduCopter <http://code.google.com/p/arducopter/> from DIYDrones as an
airframe. My main area of interest is attitude stabilization with visual
information in indoor environments.

What I plan to do is:

    * buy the ArduCopter airframe featuring a 16MHz Atmega1280, 3x gyro,
      3x accel, 3x magneto
    * add 4 sonar / IR sensors for wall detection
    * add a RGB camera and a video transmitter
    * add Xbee for communication (real-time quad to PC telemetry and PC
      to quad control commands)

I hope to implement image-processing techniques in my PC to be able to
control the attitude of my quadrotor in real-time. The control system
would be onboard, the PC would only send camera-estimated attitude info
to the quadrotor. I'd also like, and hence the question here, to build a
simulation and visualization of the whole system (including sensor
measurement simulation).

Can I benefit from using ROS in my design / simulation / visualization?
I'm working on the project only by myself and would like to have some
results in a year from now.

Thanks for any suggestions helping me to achieve my goals.