Offboard control mode - Taking off

Hello,

I’m using the X500-V2 with PX4-V6C, Jetson Nano, ROS2 Foxy, RTPS, Autopilot 1.13.3, and Arkflow for position control. I know that solely using Arkflow has its downsides, but I’m in an indoor environment and for my purposes, it has proven to be accurate enough.

I do not have access to GPS or magnetometry info, so no global position estimate is available.

I am performing offboard mode takeoffs with published setpoints over the trajectorysetpoint uORB. The first launch is successful; however, when I try to perform a second launch, there is a significant drift. The problem gets worse with each subsequent launch (I’m assuming error buildup in something). When I unplug the drone and plug it back in, the first launch is fine again.

I also think there is another symptom of the same issue, which is when I publish the initial setpoints for the launch location, I take the current position data from odometry (odom), store those in a variable, and use that to take off from the current location. However, when performing this in the simulation, the drone always returns to 0, 0, -1.5, even though the trajectorysetpoint/in topic shows the correct values.

I am missing something, I think, and any suggestions would be much appreciated.

I am aware that in the offboard control mode, it says to use takeoff and land mode for these actions. However, I am unable to do so without GPS, so this is unfortunately not a solution I have been able to get working.

Hi Mitch, can you enable logging from boot and perform the multiple takeoffs and landings? You should be able to tell the local position vs the commanded takeoff coordinates and identify the root cause.