This package implements a lightweight quadcopter unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) simulator including various static and dynamic based on Gazebo/ROS. It also includes an optional PX4-based quadcopter simulation wrapper.
Author: Zhefan Xu, Computational Engineering & Robotics Lab (CERLAB) at Carnegie Mellon University (CMU).
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This repo can be used as a standalone package and also comes as a module of our autonomy framework.
This repo has been tested on ROS Melodic with Ubuntu 18.04 and ROS Noetic with Ubuntu 20.04.
To install the non-PX4 simulator, please follow the standard catkin package make process as follows:
sudo apt-get install ros-[melodic/noetic]-mavros* # this package depends on mavros related ROS packages
git clone https://github.com/Zhefan-Xu/uav_simulator.git
cd ~/catkin_ws
catkin_make
setup environment variable. Add following to your ~/.bashrc
source path/to/uav_simulator/gazeboSetup.bash
Please make sure that you have follow the previous steps to build the non-px4 simulator.
Step 1: Install vehicle models and make it compatible with your current ROS. The following lines give the summaries:
🍎 Current PX4 version has some problems with offboard mode, please use v1.12.0 as modified in the following lines:🍎
cd directory/to/install # this should not be your catkin workspace
git clone https://github.com/PX4/PX4-Autopilot.git --recursive --branch v1.12.0
bash ./PX4-Autopilot/Tools/setup/ubuntu.sh # this step will ask you to reboot
# Please make sure you reboot after the previous step
cd /path/to/PX4-Autopilot
DONT_RUN=1 make px4_sitl_default gazebo
Step 2: Add the following script to ~/.bashrc. Remember to replace <PX4-Autopilot_clone> with the path to your PX4-Autopolot directory. This step will you setup the environment variables properly.
source <PX4-Autopilot_clone>/Tools/setup_gazebo.bash <PX4-Autopilot_clone> <PX4-Autopilot_clone>/build/px4_sitl_default
export ROS_PACKAGE_PATH=$ROS_PACKAGE_PATH:<PX4-Autopilot_clone>
export ROS_PACKAGE_PATH=$ROS_PACKAGE_PATH:<PX4-Autopilot_clone>/Tools/sitl_gazebo
Step 3: Install geographiclib datasets for PX4 simulation.
wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/mavlink/mavros/master/mavros/scripts/install_geographiclib_datasets.sh
sudo bash ./install_geographiclib_datasets.sh
a. To launch the non-PX4 simulator with a quadcopter:
roslaunch uav_simulator start.launch
You should be able to see a customized quadcopter in a predefined gazebo environment as shown below:
b. To launch the PX4 simulator with a quadcopter:
roslaunch uav_simulator px4_start.launch
You should be able to see a PX4 IRIS quadcopter in a predefined gazebo environment as shown below:
Our non-PX4 customized simulator supports the keyboard control function. You are able to control the quadcopter motion when you click the keyboard controller panel shown as below:
- There are various predefined environments in this package and you can easily switch environment when you modify the launch file located in
uav_simululator/launch/start.launchoruav_simululator/launch/px4_start.launch. All the predifined environments are listed in the lanuch files. - There are some environments which contains dynamic objects (e.g. moving persons). You can distinguish those dynamic environments by the environments' names. For example, the environment name
floorplan1_dynamic_16.worldindicates that there are 16 dynamic objects in the floorplan1 environment.
One example of the dynamic environment is shown as below:
Here lists some important ROS topics related to the simulator:
- Non-PX4 Simulator:
/CERLAB/quadcopter/cmd_acc: The command acceleration to the quadcopter./CERLAB/quadcopter/pose: The ground truth pose of the quadcopter./CERLAB/quadcopter/odom: The ground truth odom of the quadcopter./CERLAB/quadcopter/setpoint_pose: The command pose to the quadcopter./camera/color/image_raw: The color image from the onboard camera./camera/depth/image_raw: The depth image from the onboard camera./camera/depth/points: The depth cloud from the onboard camera.
- PX4 Simulator
/mavros/setpoint_raw/attitude: The command to the quadcopter./mavros/local_position/pose: The ground truth pose of the quadcopter./mavros/local_position/odom: The ground truth odom of the quadcopter./mavros/setpoint_position/local: The command pose to the quadcopter./camera/color/image_raw: The color image from the onboard camera./camera/depth/image_raw: The depth image from the onboard camera./camera/depth/points: The depth cloud from the onboard camera.