Start QGroundControl

• Launch QGroundControl on your PC (AppImage if you downloaded it).
• It should automatically connect to the SITL over UDP.
• You can use it to monitor telemetry and the VTOL state.

1️⃣ Run PX4 SITL with VTOL model

Open a terminal:

cd ~/PX4-Autopilot
make px4_sitl gz_standard_vtol

• This starts PX4 with the standard VTOL airframe in Gazebo (GZ).
• By default, PX4 will open a MAVLink UDP port 14540 for MAVROS/QGC.

2️⃣ Run MAVROS (bridge PX4 ↔ ROS 2)

Open another terminal:

source /opt/ros/humble/setup.bash
ros2 launch mavros px4.launch fcu_url:=udp://:14540@

• This starts the MAVROS node and connects to PX4 SITL.

• Confirm it’s connected with:

  ros2 topic echo /mavros/state
  
  

  You should see connected: True.

4️⃣ Subscribe to MAVROS local position

Open a new terminal:

source /opt/ros/humble/setup.bash
ros2 topic echo /mavros/local_position/pose