[ros-users] ROS Interface for AR.Drone Quadrotor

[Jack O'Quin]

On Sat, Oct 16, 2010 at 5:12 AM, Cedric Pradalier
<cedric.pradalier at mavt.ethz.ch> wrote:

> Actually, the standard coordinate frame for flying system is with Z down
> (it allows standard compass angle to be coherent with the X,Y motion).
> For this reason,
> I'm voting in favour of a Z down coordinate system for the AR-Drone.
>
> However, I agree that I would be suprised without  x forward, y
> sideways, and yaw around z....
>
> As soon as we have velocity control on the CoaX helicopter, our control
> will definitely be like that.

I realize that the standard aerospace orientation is "upside-down"
compared to the standard robotics orientation as defined in REP 103.

  http://www.ros.org/reps/rep-0103.html#axis-orientation

Since the intent of the ROS community is to share code, ignoring REP
103 is a mistake. Your vehicle would display upside-down in rviz, for
example.

But, note that there is already a documented exception for use with
camera frames (and an "_optical" suffix). If it is really so important
to use the aerospace convention, you should propose a similar
modification to REP 103 and get approval from the whole community.
Maybe an "_aerial" suffix would be appropriate.

To me, that seems clumsy and unnecessary. You could use standard ROS
frame transform conventions yet still communicate with humans using
idiosyncratic aerospace terminology.
-- 
 joq