Salvos Technologies Simulation and Control Stack

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salvos_gz

• ROS 2 and Gazebo simulation of a 263 kg heavy-lift tailsitter eVTOL pentarotor, developed to design and test its custom flight control system
  
  

salvos_control

• A model-based cascaded nonlinear thrust-vectoring controller (differential thrust only)
  
  

Features

• Robust position control under wind gusts (hover)

  • 30+ knots → horizontal accuracy of ± 0.3 metre

• Trimmed cruise at constant altitude (forward flight)

  • 65 m/s at ~ 67% throttle

• Unified control for all flight phases

  • Takeoff → transition (forward & backward) → landing
    
    

Installation instructions

Tested on:

• ROS 2 Jazzy
• Gazebo Harmonic
• Ubuntu 24.04

System dependencies

sudo apt update
sudo apt install -y \
  ros-jazzy-ros-base \
  ros-jazzy-geometry-msgs \
  ros-jazzy-sensor-msgs \
  ros-jazzy-tf2-msgs \
  ros-jazzy-rosgraph-msgs \
  ros-jazzy-actuator-msgs \
  ros-jazzy-ros-gz \
  ros-jazzy-ros-gz-interfaces

Python dependencies

python3 -m pip install --user numpy scipy pygame

If pygame fails:

sudo apt install -y \
  libsdl2-dev libsdl2-image-dev libsdl2-mixer-dev libsdl2-ttf-dev

Build & run

git clone https://github.com/soapmansantos/salvos_sim.git
source /opt/ros/jazzy/setup.bash
cd salvos_sim
colcon build
source install/setup.bash
ros2 launch salvos_gz salvos_sim.launch.py

Controls (keyboard)

A small pygame window opens and listens for keyboard input.

Mode & system

• m — Toggle manual control
  • When switching back to auto, the target is reset to the current position and hovers there
• r — Reset simulation
  • Stops motors, resets the world, reinitialises the controller, randomises wind

Landing / takeoff

• n — Start landing sequence
  • Manual control disabled
  • Holds current position, then descends
• t — Take off again (only after landing)

Manual control inputs

• w, a, s, d — Manual control inputs
  • Only active when manual mode is enabled (m)
  • Height and heading set by controller

Contact

Santos Santiago García Valls
Email: santosgarciavalls@gmail.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/santos-garcia-valls/