Setting Up the Agipix Simulation Environment

Prerequisites for host PC

  • Ubuntu 20.04/22.04 Operating System
  • NVIDIA GPU (RTX 2070 or higher)
  • NVIDIA GPU Driver (recommended version 525.85)

Optional Docker

All the deployment is dockerised Setup Docker

  • branch agipix-hard for Hardware
  • Branch agipix-sim for Software

ROS2 Humble

  Follow the latest instructions at the official page

tmux

sudo apt install tmux
cd && git clone https://github.com/tmux-plugins/tpm ~/.tmux/plugins/tpm

  if you are new to tmux or not already familiar wit tmux

wget https://raw.githubusercontent.com/SasaKuruppuarachchi/SasaKuruppuarachchi/main/.tmux.conf -P ~/

  go to .tmux.conf and edit line 12 “set -g prefix `”. This charactor “`” depends on your keyboard layout.

Nucleus Server

  Download and install Omniverse Launcher and install Nucleus Server   Go to the library and install ISAACSIM.

Enable ROS2 extension

  Open IsaacSIM > Window > Extension > ROS2 bridge – enable (Autoload)

Installing Qgroundcontrol (for PX4 based implementations)

  Follow the latest instructions at the official page

Installing docker

  Follow the latest instructions at the official docker page

Installing Portainer CE

  Portainer CE is an open-source GUI for creating and managing docker containers. Install it following these instructions

Installing Nvidia Docker

  Install the Nvidia Container toolkit with These Instructions

PX4 firmware

# Linux packages
sudo apt install git make cmake python3-pip

# Python packages
pip install kconfiglib jinja2 empy jsonschema pyros-genmsg packaging toml numpy future

cd $HOME
git clone https://github.com/PX4/PX4-Autopilot.git --recursive
cd PX4-Autopilot
make px4_sitl_default none

if PX4 launched properly you can exit out of it.   For further information visit here

To synchronise the time stamps with the simulator we need to set the parameter UXRCE_DDS_SYNCT to false. To do that,

  1. Open the rcS file at /PX4-Autopilot/ROMFS/px4fmu_common/init.d-posix/rcS
  2. Paste the following line before ´#Autostart ID´ 
    param set-default UXRCE_DDS_SYNCT 0
  3. Rebuild the firmware 
    cd $HOME
cd PX4-Autopilot
make px4_sitl_default none
  4. Make sure to set the parameter use_sim_time (of each ROS2 node) to true

Pegusus simulaotor

  Add the following lines to your ~/.bashrc or ~/.zshrc file.

# Isaac Sim root directory
export ISAACSIM_PATH="${HOME}/.local/share/ov/pkg/isaac_sim-4.1.0"
# Isaac Sim python executable
alias ISAACSIM_PYTHON="${ISAACSIM_PATH}/python.sh"
# Isaac Sim app
alias ISAACSIM="${ISAACSIM_PATH}/isaac-sim.sh"
# Change {user} accordingly
LD_LIBRARY_PATH=$LD_LIBRARY_PATH:/home/{user}/.local/share/ov/pkg/isaac_sim-2023.1.1/exts/omni.isaac.ros2_bridge/humble/lib

  Installing the extension as a library

# Go to the repository of the pegasus simulator
cd PegasusSimulator

# Go into the extensions directory
cd extensions

# Run the pip command using the built-in python interpreter
ISAACSIM_PYTHON -m pip install --editable pegasus.simulator

[!NOTE] For the first time, launching Isaac Sim takes a very long time. Isaac Sim must be fully launched to spawn the robot.

Enabling Pegasus Simulator in Isaacsim (First Operation)

  1. Launch ISAACSIM application.

  2. Open the Window->extensions on the top menubar inside Isaac Sim. alt text

  3. On the Extensions manager menu, we can enable or disable extensions. By pressing the settings button, we can add a path to the Pegasus-Simulator repository.

    alt text

  4. The path inserted should be the path to the repository followed by /extensions.

    alt text

  5. After adding the path to the extension, we can enable the Pegasus Simulator extension on the third-party tab.

    alt text

When enabling the extension for the first time, the python requirements should be install automatically for the build in ISAACSIM_PYTHON , and after a few seconds, the Pegasus widget GUI should pop-up.

  1. The Pegasus Simulator window should appear docked to the bottom-right section of the screen.

    alt text

Installation - Docker contrainer

  1. Set your workspace definitions and Clone the repo to your ros2 workspace. replace “your_branch” with “agipix_sim” for the drone 
    echo "export WORKSPACES_DIR='/home/sasa/workspace'" >> ~/.bashrc
echo "export ISAAC_ROS_DEV_DIR='/home/sasa/workspace/raicam-ros'" >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc
cd $ISAAC_ROS_DEV_DIR && git clone https://github.com/RAICAM-EU-Project/isaac_ros_common.git -b your_branch
   
# set up DDS for ROS2 communication
cd $WORKSPACES_DIR && mkdir dds && cd dds
git clone https://github.com/eProsima/Micro-XRCE-DDS-Agent.git
   

# Set up control stack
cd $WORKSPACES_DIR && mkdir agipix_control && cd agipix_control
git clone https://github.com/SasaKuruppuarachchi/px4_ros2_offboard.git
git clone https://github.com/PX4/px4_msgs.git
git clone https://github.com/SasaKuruppuarachchi/agipix_user_interfaces.git
  2. First run of the Docker container 
    # this will start the compose the docker container and start it. First run might take up to 15 Minutes
cd $WORKSPACES_DIR/raicam-ros/src/isaac_ros_common/scripts/ && ./run_dev.sh

cd /workspaces/dds/Micro-XRCE-DDS-Agent/
mkdir build && cd build
cmake ..
make
sudo make install
sudo ldconfig /usr/local/lib/

cd /workspaces/agipix_control && colcon build
source /workspaces/agipix_control/install/setup.bash

Running the Simulation

  1. Open a new terminal to launch the simulator 
    cd $ISAAC_ROS_DEV_DIR/src/isaac_ros_common/ && ./run_sim.sh
# press ENTER after moving to the right pane to launch IsaacSim
  2. In a new terminal run the docker container 
    source /workspaces/agipix_control/install/setup.bash

# this will run the control stack on docker
cd /workspaces/agipix_control/src/px4_ros2_offboard/tmux/ && ./start.sh
  3. Controlling the drone

Follow the instructions in the top right pane of docker tmux window

  1. Opening the UI

    1. Open up a Foxglow account and bavigate to the dashboard
    2. Open connection with “ws://localhost:8765”

Now we are ready for autonomy setup. See Instructions to continue.

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