AirSim ROS Tutorials#

This is a set of sample AirSim settings.jsons, roslaunch and rviz files to give a starting point for using AirSim with ROS.
See airsim_ros_pkgs for the ROS API.

Setup#

Make sure that the airsim_ros_pkgs Setup has been completed and the prerequisites installed.

$ cd PATH_TO/AirSim/ros
$ catkin build airsim_tutorial_pkgs

If your default GCC isn't 8 or greater (check using gcc --version), then compilation will fail. In that case, use gcc-8 explicitly as follows-

catkin build airsim_tutorial_pkgs -DCMAKE_C_COMPILER=gcc-8 -DCMAKE_CXX_COMPILER=g++-8

Note

For running examples, and also whenever a new terminal is opened, sourcing the setup.bash file is necessary. If you're using the ROS wrapper frequently, it might be helpful to add the source PATH_TO/AirSim/ros/devel/setup.bash to your ~/.profile or ~/.bashrc to avoid the need to run the command every time a new terminal is opened

Examples#

Single drone with monocular and depth cameras, and lidar#

Settings.json - front_stereo_and_center_mono.json

$ source PATH_TO/AirSim/ros/devel/setup.bash
$ roscd airsim_tutorial_pkgs
$ cp settings/front_stereo_and_center_mono.json ~/Documents/AirSim/settings.json

## Start your unreal package or binary here

$ roslaunch airsim_ros_pkgs airsim_node.launch;

# in a new pane / terminal
$ source PATH_TO/AirSim/ros/devel/setup.bash
$ roslaunch airsim_tutorial_pkgs front_stereo_and_center_mono.launch

The above would start rviz with tf's, registered RGBD cloud using depth_image_proc using the depth_to_pointcloud launch file, and the lidar point cloud.

Two drones, with cameras, lidar, IMU each#

Settings.json - two_drones_camera_lidar_imu.json

$ source PATH_TO/AirSim/ros/devel/setup.bash
$ roscd airsim_tutorial_pkgs
$ cp settings/two_drones_camera_lidar_imu.json ~/Documents/AirSim/settings.json

## Start your unreal package or binary here

$ roslaunch airsim_ros_pkgs airsim_node.launch;
$ roslaunch airsim_ros_pkgs rviz.launch

You can view the tfs in rviz. And do a rostopic list and rosservice list to inspect the services avaiable.

Twenty-five drones in a square pattern#

Settings.json - twenty_five_drones.json

$ source PATH_TO/AirSim/ros/devel/setup.bash
$ roscd airsim_tutorial_pkgs
$ cp settings/twenty_five_drones.json ~/Documents/AirSim/settings.json

## Start your unreal package or binary here

$ roslaunch airsim_ros_pkgs airsim_node.launch;
$ roslaunch airsim_ros_pkgs rviz.launch

You can view the tfs in rviz. And do a rostopic list and rosservice list to inspect the services avaiable.