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75 lines
3.8 KiB
Markdown
75 lines
3.8 KiB
Markdown
# Drone Apps & APIs
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Drone APIs let you write code to control and integrate with PX4-powered vehicles, without having to understand intimate details of the vehicle and flight stack, or having to think about safety-critical behaviour.
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For example, you might want to create new "smart" flight modes, or custom geofence modes, or integrate new hardware.
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Drone APIs allow you to do this using high level instructions in your programming language of choice, and the code can then run on-vehicle in a [companion computer](../companion_computer/index.md), or from a ground station.
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Under the the hood the APIs communicate with PX4 using [MAVLink](../middleware/mavlink.md) or [uXRCE-DDS](../middleware/uxrce_dds.md).
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PX4 supports the following SDKs/Robotics tools:
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- [MAVSDK](../robotics/mavsdk.md)
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- [ROS 2](../ros/index.md)
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- [ROS 1](../ros/index.md)
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## What API should I use?
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We recommend using MAVSDK where possible, primarily because it is more intuitive and easier to learn, and can run on more operating systems and less performant-hardware.
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You may prefer ROS if you already know how to use it, or if you want to leverage pre-existing integrations (for example computer vision tasks).
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More generally, ROS is likely to be a better choice for tasks that require very low latency or a deeper integration with PX4 than is provided by MAVLink.
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The main difference are:
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- **MAVSDK:**
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- Intuitive and optimised for drones, with a small learning curve and easy setup.
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- You can write apps in C++, Python, Swift, Java, Go, and more.
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- Runs on resource-constrained hardware
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- Runs on broad range of OSs, including Android, Linux, Windows.
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- Communicates over MAVLink.
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- Stable and widely supported.
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- Limited to MAVLink services - needed information may not be exposed.
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- Latency may be too high for some use cases.
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- **ROS 2**
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- General-purpose robotics API that has been extended to support drone integration:
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- Conceptually not as well optimised for drones as MAVSDK
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- Significant learning curve
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- Many pre-existing libraries: useful for code-reuse.
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- Supports C++ and Python libraries
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- Runs on Linux
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- ROS 2 is the latest version, which connects via XRCE-DDS.
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- DDS interface layer allows deep integration into any aspect of PX4 that is exposed as a UORB topic (almost everything).
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- Can provide much lower latency.
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- Still under development:
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- At time of writing requires a deeper understanding of PX4 than ROS 1.
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- Message interface with PX4 not stable/maintained across ROS and PX4 releases.
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## Deprecated APIs
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### ROS 1
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While not strictly deprecated, ROS 1 is at its final LTS Release version "Noetic Ninjemys", which reaches end-of-life in May 2025.
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That means no new features or bug fixes will be provided, and even security updates will cease in 2025.
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ROS 1 still "works" on PX4 because it uses MAVROS, a MAVLINK-ROS abstraction as an integration layer.
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This means that ROS 1 has all the limitations of MAVLink, such as a higher latency and a small API surface (and also the benefits, such as a stable interface).
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All PX4 investment in ROS is going towards a deep integration with ROS 2.
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This will essentially allow ROS 2 applications to be close to indistinguishable from code running in PX4 itself.
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::: tip
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Use ROS 2 for new projects.
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Upgrade to ROS 2 for existing projects as soon as possible.
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:::
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### DroneKit
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DroneKit-Python is a MAVLink API written in Python.
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It is not optimised for use with PX4, and has not be maintained for some years.
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Legacy docs for using PX4 and DroneKit can be found here: [PX4 v1.12 > DroneKit](https://docs.px4.io/v1.12/en/robotics/dronekit.html).
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::: tip
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[MAVSDK](https://mavsdk.mavlink.io/) is the recommended MAVLink API for use with PX4.
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It is better in almost every way: features, speed, programming language support, maintenance, and so on.
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:::
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