Scripting Drone Movement using AirSim + Unreal Engine APIs

[AbderrahimJami]

I'm interested in controlling the drone using UE scripting, I've tried doing this using the old AirSim according to the settings section in the docs controlling the drone using the Multirotor API can be performed using RPC API library, I tried digging into the code and unfortunately I can't seem to be able to use the same API functions inside a custom FlyingDrone C++ class. Is there any way for me to achieve this. I want to be able to encapsulate the movement logic of the drone inside it's own UE4 C++ class without relying on any extra C++ or Python process running (this stemmed from the idea of being able to leverage the rest of the Unreal Engine sub-systems to create some more complex AI routines for the drone).

I tried forcing the location of the drone using Unreal Engine API through the GetPawn()->SetActorLocation(FVector) but that cause issues with AirSim. I think the whole system wasn't designed around this (plus moving the drone pawn using this method, means that the physics based movement provided from AirSim is not actually used in this case). Even thought this might force the drone pawn to move in the world, querying the AirSim vehicle pose using the vehiclesimapi simply returns the drone origin location. Not to mention the camera in "fly-with-me" mode seems to be moving in weird places when I try this.

I've tried looking for other discussions around this in here and online but I haven't been able to find much on this.
Not sure if you guys have any interest in providing scripting support for Unreal Engine for this new project but I'd greatly appreciate anyone who can help me on this 🙌

[jonyMarino]

@AbderrahimJami I'm not sure about what you want to accomplish. There is a nonphysics mode in Project AirSim that lets you have a drone without physics and controller, you just set its Pose.

[AbderrahimJami]

Thank you for replying to my post, apologies if I haven't been clear. Correct me if I'm wrong but at the moment, the only way to move the drone programmatically is through the VehicleSimApi class, this can only be called outside of the Unreal Engine environment. I'd like to leverage Unreal Engine APIs to control the movement of the drone instead so I can perform drone movement in context with the rest of my UE logic. (e.g. Drone needs to follow a specific target in the world when it's in a specific state, this target is defined in Unreal Engine, either C++ or Blueprints), from my understanding this is not currently possibly in either AirSim nor is it possible in ProjectAirSim. Frankly speaking I'm more interested in the Physics Model driving the movement of the drone using UE's Physics Engine (UE5's Chaos), however I haven't been able to decouple that from the rest of the AirSim rich set of functionalities without having to pull with it all other sorts of dependencies.

[jonyMarino]

You are right that is not currently possible but is doable and more simple to solve it in PA due to its design. From the UE Robot you have access to the drone reference in simlibs.