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Data & Software Backup

Flight Logs​

Computer​

  1. Copy the ROS bags and terminal logs from autonomous missions from the onboard computer to a local machine: 
    scp -r <user>@<onboard_computer_ip>:~/flight_logs/ <local_machine_path>
  2. Upload the flight logs to Flight Logs/computer/<session_name>/ in the project's Google Drive folder.

PX4​

  1. Open QGroundControl and connect to the Pixhawk (either via USB or telemetry).
  2. Go to Analyze Tools → Onboard Logs and select the desired flight session.
  3. Click Download to save the .ulg log file to your local machine.
  4. Check the downloaded .ulg file by uploading it to PX4 Flight Review to ensure it is valid and complete.
  5. Upload the .ulg log files to Flight Logs/px4/ in the project's Google Drive folder.
  6. Clean up the Pixhawk by clicking Erase All in the Analyze Tools → Onboard Logs menu to free up space for future flights.

Flight Session Cleanup​

  1. Delete the ROS bag and terminal log folders.
  2. Sort the final example_session into subfolders depending on the functionality (i.e. outdoor/ or development/), matching how it was recorded.
  3. Upload the sorted session folders to Firmware Backup/Sessions/ in the project's Google Drive folder.

PX4 Parameters​

  1. Open QGroundControl and connect to the Pixhawk (either via USB or telemetry).
  2. Go to Vehicle Setup → Parameters → Tools → Save to file, and export as px4.params.
  3. Upload px4.params to Firmware Backup/Pixhawk/ in Google Drive.

Docker Image Backup​

Save the onboard companion computer's Docker image so the software stack can be restored without rebuilding it.

  1. List running/available images to identify the one used in production: 
    docker images
  2. Save and compress the image in one step [web:6][web:8]: 
    docker save <image_name>:<tag> | gzip > docker_image.tar.gz
  3. Upload docker_image.tar.gz to Firmware Backup/Sessions/ in Google Drive (alongside the session folders, as shown in the final structure).
Restoring the Docker image
gunzip -c docker_image.tar.gz | docker load