Remote Programming Pluto Nano Drone
As part of Inter IIT Tech Meet 11.0, I embarked on an exciting project to program India’s best-selling educational nano drone, Pluto. The primary objective was to remove dependency on mobile applications by developing a Python-based control interface, while also exploring autonomous flight using ArUco tags and PID controllers. This project provided hands-on experience in drone communication protocols, real-time control, and vision-based navigation.
1. Python Wrapper for Pluto Drone
- Investigated Pluto’s ROS package and MSP (MultiWii Serial Protocol) to understand its communication backbone.
- Designed and implemented a Python wrapper allowing direct commands for pitch, roll, throttle, take-off, and landing from both Linux and Windows platforms.
- Conducted successful test flights where the drone responded in real time to Python scripts, validating the wrapper’s effectiveness and enabling software-driven control.
2. Autonomous Flight with ArUco Tags
- Generated and mounted ArUco markers on Pluto to enable precise position tracking using computer vision.
- Implemented a PID controller to achieve stable altitude hold and smooth hovering.
- Extended the control logic to autonomously trace a 1 × 2 m rectangular trajectory, demonstrating structured path-following flight in real-world conditions.
3. Key Learnings & Impact
- Gained hands-on expertise in low-level drone communication, real-time control loops, and tuning PID controllers for stability.
- Learned to integrate computer vision-based localization with flight dynamics, converting visual feedback into actionable control signals.
- Showcased the potential of accessible nano drones for research, education, swarm robotics, and autonomous aerial systems.
- Beyond technical skills, the project was an exploration in problem-solving, evolving a simple idea into a fully functional autonomous prototype.