Skip to content

Latest commit

 

History

History
54 lines (51 loc) · 3.31 KB

README.MD

File metadata and controls

54 lines (51 loc) · 3.31 KB

Running simulation in Docker for Erle Robotics vehicles

This repository contains scripts and instructions on building Docker container for the purpose of running simulations with Erle Robotics vehicles. It is essentially dockerized instructions provided on the official Erle Robotics website. Currently only ROS Indigo is supported and tested, Kinetic is in the works.

Building Docker image

To build a Docker container, run the following command from this directory:

docker build -t erle-sim:indigo -f Dockerfile.indigo .

This command will create a Docker image with the tag erle-sim:indigo. Once the build is finished, you can verify that the image is built by running docker images command.

Creating Docker container

In order to be able to run Gazebo from the Docker container, you need to connect host's X server to the Docker container. A good tutorial on various methods is documented on the ROS Wiki, here we use the most simple (and insecure!) way.

  1. Create Docker container: 
    docker run -it --network=host -v /tmp/.X11-unix:/tmp/.X11-unix -e DISPLAY=unix${DISPLAY} --name=erle-sim erle-sim:indigo bash
    This command will create a container named erle-sim from the image with the same name (erle-sim) and enable executing GUI programs.
  2. Exit the container and restart/attach the container granting the permissions to xhost first: 
    xhost +local:`docker ps -aqf "name=erle-sim"`
docker start erle-sim && docker attach erle-sim
    Replace erle-sim with your container name if needed.
  3. Run Gazebo to make sure everything is working: 
    gazebo
    You should see Gazebo window.

Troubleshooting

In case you see messages like failed to load driver while executing step 3 and no Gazebo window opens up, you might be missing drivers. The current Docker script already contains command that installs Mesa drivers (libgl1-mesa-dri) but that might not be enough so try googling for more information.

Testing

Once the container is created, try running simulator. For example, to run Rover simulator, run the following commands from the container:

source ~/simulation/ros_catkin_ws/devel/setup.bash
cd ~/simulation/ardupilot/APMrover2/
../Tools/autotest/sim_vehicle.sh -j 4 -f Gazebo
# once MAVProxy has launched completely, load the parameters
param load /[full_path_to_your_home_directory]/simulation/ardupilot/Tools/Frame_params/3DR_Rover.param
# For example: param load /root/simulation/ardupilot/Tools/Frame_params/3DR_Rover.param

Now connect another terminal to the currently running Docker container:

docker exec -it erle-sim bash

and run the following commands:

source ~/simulation/ros_catkin_ws/devel/setup.bash
roslaunch ardupilot_sitl_gazebo_plugin rover_spawn.launch

If everything was setup correctly, you should see Gazebo window with Rover model that you can control from the first terminal using MAVProxy commands: Gazebo Erle Rover Some of the MAVProxy commands are described here. You can also use run_erle_sim.sh script to create new container or attach to a running container.