Julia in Flight - Real-Time Control of a Quadcopter with Julia

Explore real-time control applications using Julia programming language through a practical demonstration of quadcopter flight control. Learn how Julia's performance capabilities can be leveraged for hard-real-time control systems despite traditional challenges including compilation pauses that break real-time guarantees, runtime size limitations for embedded systems, and integration requirements with system architectures or RTOS. Discover solutions to these challenges through a case study of a quadcopter developed by the Autonomous Control Laboratory at the University of Washington, which runs PX4 on a STM32H7 connected to a Raspberry Pi CM4. Examine the implementation of 1kHz translational and attitude control loops using Julia on the CM4, connected to PX4 on the STM32 via ROS2 and the Micro-XRCE DDS bridge. Analyze measured latency and jitter performance of the Julia controller during actual flight operations on both platforms, and observe the physical performance demonstration of the flight controller executing agile flight maneuvers.