What is pymavswarm?

pymavswarm is a Python library implemented to enable interaction with drone swarms using the MAVLink protocol. This library supports reading MAVLink messages sent from multiple agents in a swarm and sending MAVLink messages to agents within the swarm. Such functionality ultimately enables development of new swarm applications such as ground control stations.

Main features

Here are some of the main features of pymavswarm:

• Easily send MAVLink commands to multiple drones, simultaneously

• Monitor the state of swarm drone agents

• Implement custom commands and swarm algorithms

• Develop applications for on-board companion computers

• Implement custom swarm ground control stations

• Log incoming MAVLink messages for future evaluation and debugging

• Construct pre-planned missions

• Multi-agent collision avoidance using reachability analysis

Installation

pymavswarm may be installed from PyPI by running:

$ python3 -m pip install pymavswarm

To build pymavswarm from source, first ensure that at least Python 3.10 is installed. Once this dependency has been met, refer to the steps below:

1. Clone the project repository

2. Navigate to the pymavswarm/ base directory

$ cd path/to/pymavswarm/

3. Install the pymavswarm Python package

$ python3 -m pip install .

Quick start

pymavswarm has been implemented to enable easy interfacing with drone swarms. Refer to the following code snippet for a simple example to get started with the library. Additional examples may be found in the project examples.

import time

from pymavswarm import MavSwarm

# Create a new pymavswarm interface
mavswarm = MavSwarm()

# Establish a connection with a USB telemetry device
mavswarm.connect('/dev/ttyUSB0', 115200, 255, 0)

# Wait for the swarm to be populated
while not mavswarm.agents:
    pass

# Arm each agent in the swarm
mavswarm.arm()

# Briefly delay to allow all agents to arm
time.sleep(5.0)

# Disarm each agent in the swarm
mavswarm.disarm()

# Close the pymavswarm connection
mavswarm.disconnect()

Getting help

If you have questions regarding pymavswarm usage or contribution please ask a question on our Discussions board!

Contributing

All contributions and ideas are welcome! Detailed guidelines regarding how to contribute can be found in the contribution guidelines.

License

pymavswarm is released under the GNU General Public License v3 or later