Simulator

Installing the Simulator on the PC

The reference environment uses Ubuntu 20.04 and ROS Noetic, but any newer Ubuntu version and any newer ROS 1 distribution should also work.

The same repository contains additional branches, each contributed independently by participating teams. These branches were created and published by the teams themselves. Bosch does not maintain, curate, or take ownership of the content in those branches; they are made available as-is for reference or inspiration.

To install the simulator, clone the repository into your Documents folder, then follow the steps below (replace {YOUR_USER} with your actual username):

catkin_make --pkg utils
catkin_make
echo 'export GAZEBO_MODEL_PATH="/home/{YOUR_USER}/Documents/Simulator/src/models_pkg:$GAZEBO_MODEL_PATH"' >> devel/setup.bash
echo 'export ROS_PACKAGE_PATH="/home/{YOUR_USER}/Documents/Simulator/src:$ROS_PACKAGE_PATH"' >> devel/setup.bash
source devel/setup.bash
roslaunch sim_pkg map_with_all_objects.launch

Next, open two additional terminals and run:

source devel/setup.bash
rosrun example camera.py

source devel/setup.bash
rosrun example control.py

Additional Notes

Camera

To modify camera resolution or position, adjust the following files:

  • src/models_pkg/camera/model.sdf Contains <width> and <height> tags for resolution. No workspace recompilation is required.

  • src/models_pkg/rcCar_assembly/model.sdf Contains:

    • <uri>model://camera</uri> (camera inclusion)

    • <pose> tag specifying position and orientation (format: <pose>X Y Z ROLL PITCH YAW</pose> in radians)

    No recompilation is required after these changes.

Working with Gazebo

  • To restart the simulation without restarting Gazebo: rosservice call /gazebo/reset_simulation

  • Disable the GUI in your launch file to save computational resources.

  • Use rqt to inspect images, topics, frequencies, and debug data.

  • To change map resolution, edit: src/models_pkg/track/materials/scripts/bfmc_track.material Higher resolution = higher resource usage.

  • In src/sim_pkg/launch/sublaunchers/ you will find launch files for each group of objects. You can spawn specific elements while the simulator is running.

  • You may create your own launch configurations by including existing launch files. Example: map_with_all_objects.launch in src/sim_pkg/launch/.

ROS Vehicle and Simulator Integration

To integrate the physical car with the simulator, both the RPi and the PC must:

  • Be on the same network

  • Have SSH enabled on the Raspberry Pi

  • Share consistent ROS environment variables

This setup allows the nodes on the car to communicate with the roscore running on the PC (or vice versa, if you choose to run roscore on the RPi instead).

On the Raspberry Pi

export ROS_IP=`hostname -I`
export ROS_HOSTNAME=`hostname -I`
export ROS_MASTER_URI="http://PC_IP:11311"

Where PC_IP is the IP address of the simulation PC.

On the PC

export ROS_IP=`hostname -I`
export ROS_HOSTNAME=`hostname -I`
export ROS_MASTER_URI="http://$ROS_IP:11311"

Launching the System

On the Raspberry Pi

cd Brain_ROS
source devel/setup.bash
roslaunch sim_pkg start_car_virtual.launch

On the PC

cd Simulator
source devel/setup.bash
roslaunch sim_pkg map_with_car.launch

After launching:

  • The simulator publishes on topics such as: automobile/image_raw, automobile/localization, automobile/IMU, automobile/feedback, automobile/semaphores/_

  • The simulator subscribes to: automobile/command

Your vehicle (Brain_ROS on the RPi) can publish and subscribe normally, as if interacting with a real-world system.