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AirSim

AirSim is an Unreal plugin developed by Microsoft but no longer maintained, so don't use the Microsoft version. We are now using our own fork of Colosseum because when we last checked theirs didn't work on Ubuntu 22 (TODO check again).

Unreal Setup

  1. Download and extract Unreal 5.4 to ~/src

  2. Build:

    cd ~/src/UnrealEngine-5.4.0-release
./Setup.sh
./GenerateProjectFiles.sh
make

  3. If asked during Setup to register Unreal file types, say yes. Upon completion of the script, the “SUCCESS” message should print.

  4. *Unclear if this is always required, but
    1. make sure you’re using an NVIDIA driver, you’ll get a warning about Vulkan driver missing if not;
    2. if Unreal opens but the project fails, or if you get an error about incompatible versions/open with null source code, remove the args “-NoEngineChanges -NoHotReloadFromIDE” from DesktopPlatformBase.cpp, then make again

Colosseum Setup

First add libs for vulkan.

wget -qO- https://packages.lunarg.com/lunarg-signing-key-pub.asc | sudo tee /etc/apt/trusted.gpg.d/lunarg.asc
sudo wget -qO /etc/apt/sources.list.d/lunarg-vulkan-jammy.list http://packages.lunarg.com/vulkan/lunarg-vulkan-jammy.list
sudo apt update

Then for libunwind:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install libunwind-dev

Then:

cd ~/src
git clone git@github.com:robotics-88/Colosseum.git
cd Colosseum
git checkout r88_5.2
./setup.sh
./build.sh

+

Add to ~/.bashrc:

export AIRSIM_DIR="/home/$USER/src/Colosseum"
source ~/.bashrc

ROS2

Our AirSim ROS2 wrapper depends on finding Colosseum/AirSim, so if you jump to this section the build will fail without the above. Assuming the prior steps are complete:

Clone and Build

cd ~/src
git clone https://github.com/robotics-88/open-drone-core.git
cd open-drone-core
./setup_workspace.sh -s
colcon build

Launch

Start Unreal: 

cd ~/src/Unreal
./Engine/Binaries/Linux/UnrealEditor
If running for the first time, you'll need to use the project browser to locate the R88 world. If you check "open last project on start," then next time you run this terminal command, it will take you straight to the sim.

Start ArduPilot: 

cd ~/src/r88_ardupilot
./run_airsim.sh

In Unreal, press play (shortcut Alt + P).

Run the flight stack with: 

cd open-drone-core
./run_sim.sh do_airsim:=true

Note

Note, when you want to stop the sim, press stop in Unreal (shortcut ESC) BEFORE ctrl+C in ArduPilot, or the window will freeze.