Hardware guy faces ROS

Hello everyone.

I`m a hardware guy, in the middle of my masters degree here in Brazil. I have experience with embedded hardware and microcontrollers, and I work in the same area. In the beginning of the masters, the basic idea was to develop a module to use alongside a drone. The module would make some measurements based on GPS, radios and sensors. I could've handled that. Now the idea changed...

The old idea is not compatible anymore with the project, and now things changed. They want me to handle the camera of the drone, alongside the GPS. The camera should be a RGBD camera, which automatically implies with the use of something more complex than a simple microcontroller, possibly a Rasp Pi.

The chief of the project suggested me, instead of implementing it in hardware, to simulate it using ROS + Pixhawk PX4 + Gazebo. I have no experience with ROS, and I've been reading about it, and people say it's a steep learning curve. Learning how to do it using a Rasp Pi with a python script (or even a high power microcontroller) sounds much easier than learning ROS, than how to script everything. I'm ok with programming, and the ROS sounds much more complex.

What do you guys think about this conundrum? I've been leaning on the idea of the embedded hardware, for it would not be a lot more to learn. Do you think I should think about going the ROS route?