ROS2 Setup for developers

Project AirSim can join a ROS2 network using the Project AirSim ROS2 Bridge. The bridge is a pure Python ROS2 node that connects to Project AirSim using the Client API. It is provided as a Python package and can be run as a ROS2 node or directly with the Python interpreter. This bridge is compatible with the Pixel Streaming infrastructure and supports camera, lidar, radar, and pose topics.

1. Setup python client(venv)

Setup python client

2. Install ROS(humble)

How to install ros_humble …

Install radar_msgs

sudo apt-get install ros-humble-radar-msgs

… Build and activate projectairsim-interfaces(custom message/service types)

cd ./ros/node 
colcon build
. install/setup.bash

3. Install bridge

In a virtual environment, install projectairsim-rosbridge and projectairsim-ros2

cd ./ros/node/
pip install -e projectairsim-rosbridge
pip install -e projectairsim-ros2

4. Activate node

Executing projectairsim_bridge_ros2.py will initialize the ros2 node that will start listening and broadcasting topics. In a virtual environment,

python ./scripts/ros2/projectairsim_bridge_ros2.py --simconfigpath PATH_TO_SIM_CONFIGS --address <IPv4_server_address>

5. Publish topic messages

In a separate terminal window:

source /opt/ros/humble/setup.bash

To get a list of available topics:

ros2 topic list

To load a new scene config

This will make available new topics, relevant to scene.

ros2 service call /airsim_node/load_scene projectairsim_ros/srv/LoadScene "{scene_file: 'scene_basic_drone.jsonc', is_primary_client: 1}"

NODENAME changes. You can find NODENAME in the topic list.

6. Activate video streaming node

Executing ‘webrtc_node.py’ will initialize the ros2 node that will connect with pixel streaming video server.

ros2 run projectairsim_ros webrtc_node.py

ROS2 Topics and TF Frames

Subscribed Topics

Published Topics

  • /airsim_node/<robot_name>/actual_pose ([geometry_msgs/PoseStamped])

  • /airsim_node/<robot_name>/<camera_name>/<image_type>/image ([sensor_msgs/Image])

  • /airsim_node/<robot_name>/<camera_name>/<image_type>/camera_info ([sensor_msgs/CameraInfo])

  • /airsim_node/<robot_name>/<lidar_name>/lidar ([sensor_msgs/PointCloud2])

  • /airsim_node/<robot_name>/<radar_name>/radar_detections ([radar_msgs/RadarScan])

  • /airsim_node/<robot_name>/<radar_name>/radar_tracks ([radar_msgs/RadarTracks])

  • /airsim_streaming_camera/image_raw (H.264 stream forwarding)

TF Broadcasted Frames

  • airsim_node/<robot_name>: robot base frame from map

  • airsim_node/<robot_name>/<camera_name>/<image_type>: camera image frame from map

Image Types Mapping

image_type ID

Name

0

scene_camera

1

depth_planar_camera

2

depth_camera

3

segmentation_camera

4

depth_vis_camera

5

disparity_normalized_camera

6

surface_normals