gazebo.md

title	Gazebo Simulator
description	Quadruped Simulation and Control
icon	robot

System Requirements

Component	Minimum	Good/Recommended	Ideal
CPU	Intel i7 (10th gen) or AMD Ryzen 7-8 cores minimum	Intel i9 (12th gen+) or AMD Ryzen 9-12 cores	AMD Ryzen 9 7950X or Intel i9-13900K 16+ cores (24+ threads)
RAM	16 GB	32 GB	64 GB
GPU	NVIDIA GTX 1660 Ti 6 GB VRAM	NVIDIA RTX 3070 or RTX 4060 Ti 8-12 GB VRAM	NVIDIA RTX 4080/4090 16+ GB VRAM with CUDA 11.8+
OS	Ubuntu 22.04	Ubuntu 22.04	Ubuntu 22.04

It's ideal to have at least 128 GB SSD storage for the setup to run smoothly.

Simulation Instructions

To get started with Gazebo and Unitree SDK, please install cyclonedds and ROS2 Humble first. You can find the installation steps here.

To install compilers and other tools to build ROS packages, run

sudo apt install ros-dev-tools

Install the following additional dependencies

sudo apt install ros-humble-rmw-cyclonedds-cpp
sudo apt install ros-humble-rosidl-generator-dds-idl

Set up your environment by sourcing the following file.

source /opt/ros/humble/setup.bash

If you don't have uv installed, use the following command to install it on your system.

curl -LsSf https://astral.sh/uv/install.sh | sh

Check if you have rosdep installed by running rosdep or rosdep --version. If it is not installed, run the following:

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install python3-rosdep

Once you've successfully completed above steps, follow the following steps to start the gazebo simulation, generate SLAM map of the surrounding and start navigation.

Step 1: Clone the OM1-sim repository:

git clone https://github.com/OpenMind/OM1-sim.git

Step 2: Initialize rosdep by setting up the source list (this is only needed once per machine)

Note: Run 'sudo rosdep init' only if rosdep has not been initialized on this machine before. If it has, skip this line and start from 'rosdep update'.

cd OM1-sim
sudo rosdep init
rosdep update
rosdep install --from-paths . --ignore-src -r -y

It automatically installs all system dependencies needed by the ROS packages in your current directory.

Step 3: Build all the packages:

colcon build

Once the build is successful, create a virtual environment and install the dependencies

uv venv --python 3.10
source .venv/bin/activate
uv pip install .

Now you should be able to launch the Gazebo Simulator.

Step 4: Open a terminal and run the following commands. You'll now be able to see the Gazebo and RViZ windows launch on your system.

source install/setup.bash
ros2 launch go2_gazebo_sim go2_launch.py

Step 5: Run Zenoh Ros2 Bridge

To run the Zenoh bridge for the Unitree Go2, you need to have the Zenoh ROS 2 bridge installed. You can find the installation instructions in the Zenoh ROS 2 Bridge documentation

After installing the Zenoh ROS 2 bridge, you can run it with the following command:

zenoh-bridge-ros2dds -c ./zenoh/zenoh_bridge_config.json5

Step 6: Start OM1

Refer to the Installation Guide for detailed instructions.

Setup your API key in .bashrc file and run your simulation agent:

Get your API key from the portal, and add it to bashrc

vi ~/.bashrc

export OM_API_KEY="<your_api_key>"

Now, run the simulation agent

CONFIG=unitree_go2_autonomy USE_SIM=true make dev

Step 7: Teleoperate the robot in simulation

You can also use teleoperation to control the robot through your keyboard.

Open OM1-sim directory in a new terminal and run the following commands

source install/setup.bash
ros2 run teleop_twist_keyboard teleop_twist_keyboard

Use the keyboard controls displayed in the terminal to move the robot:

i - Move forward
, - Move backward
j - Turn left
l - Turn right
k - Stop
U/O/M/> - Move diagonally

Note:

1. Auto charging feature is not supported with Gazebo but it will be launched soon. Stay tuned!
2. SLAM Map generation and Navigation are only offered as part of Premium features and would require an active subscription to Enterprise Plan on OpenMind Portal.