Flying a drone

A quadcopter Vehicle in POSITION control mode. It flies itself between four waypoints with setTarget — no manual throttle or attitude input. The four propellers auto-mix a hover throttle to fight gravity, and the rotor disks spin in proportion to each propeller’s throttle.

Drag to orbit

❚❚ Pause↺ Reset

Run demo

Loading physics…

How it works

import { Vehicle } from "jolt-ts-character-controller";

const drone = new Vehicle({
  world,                        // created with gravity [0, 0, 0]
  shape: chassisShape,          // a compound: body + four rotor mounts
  density: 200,
  enableCustomGravity: true,
  gravityField: () => ({ x: 0, y: -9.81, z: 0 }),
  droneConfig: { controlMode: "POSITION", maxHorizSpeed: 12, maxTiltAngle: Math.PI / 5 },
});

// A quad alternates torque direction across diagonals to cancel net yaw.
drone.addPropeller({ position: [1, -0.05, 1], maxThrust: 5000, torqueRatio: 0.6, invertTorque: true });
// …three more…

const waypoints = [[4, 3, 4], [-4, 4.5, 4], [-4, 3, -4], [4, 5, -4]];
function fixedStep(dt) {
  drone.setTarget({ x, y, z }, heading); // current waypoint
  drone.step(dt);
  world.step(dt);
}

See also

• Drones — propellers, VELOCITY vs POSITION control, and drone tuning.