FIRA Autonomous Cars Simulator

FIRA Autonomous Cars Simulator for FIRARoboWorldCup Competition. The instructions necessary for getting started is available below.

Updated for ROS NOETIC

*** THIS VERISION IS STABLE!!!

Changelog

1.0.2

• Removed ground plane from race track world
• Modified Race Track mesh
• Changed initial position of the car to be on the track
• Added an example_pkg package to demonstrate a basic usage of topics and driving the vehicle
• Modified the ambient color of the scene in the race track
• Added sky and clouds to the race track

Tested Minimum Local Hardware Requirements

CPU: Intel® Core™ i5-5257U CPU @ 2.70GHz
GPU: Intel® Iris 6100
RAM: 8 GB

Software Requirements

Ubuntu 16.04 and ROS Noetic used exclusively. Other versions are not officially supported. Prior to installing our software make sure to have ROS and Catkin tools installed: http://wiki.ros.org/noetic/Installation/Ubuntu

sudo apt-get install python3-catkin-tools python3-catkin-pkg python3-osrf-pycommon

sudo apt install ros-noetic-can-msgs ros-noetic-velocity-controllers ros-noetic-velodyne-pointcloud ros-noetic-teleop-twist-keyboard ros-noetic-gazebo-ros ros-noetic-gazebo-ros-control ros-noetic-gazebo-ros-pkgs ros-noetic-hector-gazebo-plugins ros-noetic-hector-gazebo-worlds ros-noetic-hector-gazebo ros-noetic-ros-controllers

Installation

mkdir -p ~/catkin_ws/src
cd ~/catkin_ws/
mkdir src
cd src

git clone https://github.com/binsdela/FIRA-Autonomous-Cars-Simulator.git

catkin_init_workspace
cd ..
catkin_make

echo 'source ~/catkin_ws/devel/setup.zsh' >> ~/.zshrc
source ~/.zshrc

roslaunch avisengine_environment update_world.launch #Important : This command will update every static paths in this package. Make sure to run this, otherwise the gazebo simulator won't run correctly.

The installation process is done.

Running the simulator

After successfully finishing the installation process, everything is ready. Launching the following command will start the gazebo simulator in the race track.

roslaunch avisengine_environment track_race_simple.launch 

You can get the front camera image from /catvehicle/camera_front/image_raw_front/compressed topic and can send control commands using a Twist message to /catvehicle/cmd_vel.

Get a list of topics by running the following command:

rostopic list

The car can also be driven manually by launching the following command:

roslaunch catvehicle_tests cmdvel_unsafetest.launch 

use the keys in your keyboard to drive the car manually:
i : Move Forward
, : Move Backward

u : Turn Left and Forward
o : Turn Right and Forward

m : Turn Left and Backward
. : Turn Right and Backward

k : Center and stop
q, z : Increase or decrease speed

Usage of the example package

There is an example package in /example_pkg that demonstrates a basic usage of the simulator in python. /example_pkg/src/drive.py is used to drive the vehicle and /example_pkg/src/imageReceive.py is used to receive image from the vehicle. The drive node uses Twist message to control the vehicle through the /catvehicle/cmd_vel topic.

Customizing the Track

Race track mesh in blender

You can customize the race track by modifying the 3D file in avisengine_environment/meshes/mesh_road.blend using Blender which is a free and open-source 3D computer graphics software. The instructions on how to modify this file is written in the blender file.