RotorS

RotorS is a MAV gazebo simulator. It provides some multirotor models such as the AscTec Hummingbird, the AscTec Pelican, or the AscTec Firefly, but the simulator is not limited for the use with these multicopters.

There are simulated sensors coming with the simulator such as an IMU, a generic odometry sensor, and the VI-Sensor, which can be mounted on the multirotor.

This package also contains some example controllers, basic worlds, a joystick interface, and example launch files.

Below we provide the instructions necessary for getting started. See RotorS’ wiki for more instructions and examples (https://github.com/ethz-asl/rotors_simulator/wiki).

If you are using this simulator within the research for your publication, please cite:

@Inbook{Furrer2016,
author="Furrer, Fadri
and Burri, Michael
and Achtelik, Markus
and Siegwart, Roland",
editor="Koubaa, Anis",
chapter="RotorS---A Modular Gazebo MAV Simulator Framework",
title="Robot Operating System (ROS): The Complete Reference (Volume 1)",
year="2016",
publisher="Springer International Publishing",
address="Cham",
pages="595--625",
isbn="978-3-319-26054-9",
doi="10.1007/978-3-319-26054-9_23",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-26054-9_23"
}

Installation Instructions ————————-

1. Install and initialize ROS indigo desktop full, additional ROS packages, catkin-tools, and wstool:

 $ sudo sh -c 'echo "deb http://packages.ros.org/ros/ubuntu `lsb_release -sc` main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ros-latest.list'
 $ wget http://packages.ros.org/ros.key -O - | sudo apt-key add -
 $ sudo apt-get update
 $ sudo apt-get install ros-indigo-desktop-full ros-indigo-joy ros-indigo-octomap-ros python-wstool python-catkin-tools
 $ sudo rosdep init
 $ rosdep update
 $ source /opt/ros/indigo/setup.bash
 

1. If you don’t have ROS workspace yet you can do so by

 $ mkdir -p ~/catkin_ws/src
 $ cd ~/catkin_ws/src
 $ catkin_init_workspace  # initialize your catkin workspace
 $ wstool init
 

Note for setups with multiple workspaces please refer to the official documentation at http://docs.ros.org/independent/api/rosinstall/html/ by replacing rosws by wstool.

1. Get the simulator and additional dependencies

 $ cd ~/catkin_ws/src
 $ git clone git@github.com:ethz-asl/rotors_simulator.git
 $ git clone git@github.com:ethz-asl/mav_comm.git
 

Note On OS X you to install yaml-cpp using Homebrew brew install yaml-cpp.

Note if you want to use wstool you can replace the above commands with

    wstool set --git local_repo_name git@github.com:organization/repo_name.git
    

Note if you want to build and use the gazebo_mavlink_interface plugin you have to get MAVROS as an additional dependency from link below. Follow the installation instructions provided there and build all of its packages prior to building the rest of your workspace.

    https://github.com/mavlink/mavros
    

1. Build your workspace with python_catkin_tools (therefore you need python_catkin_tools)

   $ cd ~/catkin_ws/
   $ catkin init  # If you haven't done this before.
   $ catkin build
   

1. Add sourcing to your .bashrc file

   $ echo "source ~/catkin_ws/devel/setup.bash" >> ~/.bashrc
   $ source ~/.bashrc
   

Basic Usage

Launch the simulator with a hex-rotor helicopter model, in our case, the AscTec Firefly in a basic world.

$ roslaunch rotors_gazebo mav_hovering_example.launch mav_name:=firefly world_name:=basic

Note The first run of gazebo might take considerably long, as it will download some models from an online database.

The simulator starts by default in paused mode. To start it you can either

• use the Gazebo GUI and press the play button
• or you can send the following service call.

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