Multirotor Simulator

Introduction 

For simulation purposes with Multirotor simulator , Aerostack2 provides with a platform that serves as an entry point for aerial robotics simulated in this environment.

Installation 

For binary installation, install by running:

sudo apt install ros-humble-as2-platform-multirotor-simulator

Warning

This package is available for aerostack2 v1.1 and onwards.

For source installation, clone Aerostack2 repository into your workspace and build it. See it in Aerostack2 installation guide.

Aerostack2 Common Interface 

For more details about platform control modes and sensors, see Aerostack2 Aerial Platform Concepts.

Control Modes 

These are supported control modes:

Control Modes Multirotor Simulator Platform
Control Mode	Yaw Mode	Reference Frame
Hover	None	None
Position	Angle	ENU
Position	Speed	ENU
Speed	Angle	ENU
Speed	Speed	ENU
Trajectory	Angle	ENU
Trajectory	Speed	ENU
Acro	None	None

Sensors 

These are supported sensors:

Sensors Multirotor Simulator Platform
Sensor	Topic	Type
IMU	sensor_measurements/imu	sensor_msgs/msg/Imu
GPS	sensor_measurements/gps	sensor_msgs/msg/NavSatFix

Gimbal 

Gimbal is supported in simulation. These are the supported gimbal model types:

Gimbal Control Modes Multirotor Simulator Platform
Gimbal type	Topic	Type	Control mode id
gimbal_position	platform/{gimbal_name}/gimbal_command	as2_msgs/msg/GimbalControl	“0”

Gimbal state is published in the following topics:

Gimbal State Multirotor Simulator Platform
Topic	Type
sensor_measurements/{gimbal_name}	geometry_msgs/msg/PoseStamped

Config Simulation 

Configuration files are located in as2_platform_multirotor_simulator/config/:

control_modes.yaml: available input control modes for the aerostack2 aerial platform.
platform_config_file.yaml: ROS 2 configuration, with tf names, frequencies and aerostack2 parameters.
simulation_config.yaml: simulation configuration, with frequency and environment parameters.
uav_configuav_config.yaml: UAV configuration, with the drone’s physical parameters and controller configuration.
world_config.yaml: world configuration, as parameters override for each drone namespace in the configuration file.

Platform Launch 

Aerostack2 Multirotor Simulator platform provides two launch files:

as2_platform_multirotor_simulator.launch.py: launch the platform with platform configuration file.
as2_platform_multirotor_simulator_world.launch.launch.py: launch the platform with world configuration file.

You can show launcher parameters by running:

ros2 launch as2_platform_multirotor_simulator as2_platform_multirotor_simulator.launch..py --show-args

ros2 launch as2_platform_multirotor_simulator as2_platform_multirotor_simulator_world.launch..py --show-args

Launcher parameters order:

Default configuration file in as2_platform_multirotor_simulator/config/ folder.
Custom configuration file in the launch command (e.g. platform_config_file:=path/to/file.yaml).
Custom parameters in the launch command (e.g. frequency:=100).
Custom world configuration in the launch command (e.g. world_config:=path/to/file.yaml), for the world launcher.

Example of launch command:

ros2 launch as2_platform_multirotor_simulator as2_platform_multirotor_simulator.launch.py namespace:=drone0

For launch the simulation, run the following command:

ros2 launch as2_platform_multirotor_simulator as2_platform_multirotor_simulator_world.launch.launch.py namespace:=drone0 world_config:=config/world_config.yaml