Quick start

Prerequisites

Git

For the following installation instructions you will need git which you can set up with the following commands:

sudo apt-get install git
git config --global user.name "Your Name Here"
git config --global user.email "Same Email as used for github"
git config --global color.ui true

Packages

Flightmare requires CMake and GCC compiler. You will also need system packages python3, OpenMPI, and OpenCV.

apt-get update && apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends \
   build-essential \
   cmake \
   libzmqpp-dev \
   libopencv-dev

Install with pip

In this section, we assume that all the prerequisites are installed.

Python environment

It is a good idea to use virtual environments (virtualenvs) or Anaconda to make sure packages from different projects do not interfere with each other. Check here for Anaconda installation.

To create an environment with python3.6

conda create --name ENVNAME python=3.6

Activate a named Conda environment

conda activate ENVNAME

Install Flightmare

Clone the project to your desktop (or any other directory)

cd ~/Desktop
git clone https://github.com/uzh-rpg/flightmare.git

Add Environment Variable

Add FLIGHTMARE_PATH environment variable to your .bashrc file:

echo "export FLIGHTMARE_PATH=~/Desktop/flightmare" >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc

Install dependencies

conda activate ENVNAME
cd flightmare/
pip install -r requirements.txt

### Install Flighmare (flightlib)

cd flightmare/flightlib
# it first compile the flightlib and then install it as a python package.
pip install .

After installing flightlib, you can following the [[Basic Usage with Python|Basic-Usage-with-Python]] for some Reinforcement learning examples.

Install with ROS

In this section, we assume that all the prerequisites are installed.

Get ROS

You can use this framework with the Robot Operating System ROS and you therefore first need to install it (Desktop-Full Install) by following the steps described in the ROS Installation.

Gazebo

To install Gazebo checkout out their documentation.

Or in short * ROS Melodic and newer: use Gazebo version 9.x sudo apt-get install gazebo9 * ROS Kinetic and newer: use Gazebo version 7.x sudo apt-get install gazebo7 * ROS Indigo: use Gazebo version 2.x sudo apt-get install gazebo2

ROS Dependencies

Install system and ROS dependencies (on Ubuntu20.04, replace python-vcstool with python3-vcstool ):

sudo apt-get install libgoogle-glog-dev protobuf-compiler ros-$ROS_DISTRO-octomap-msgs ros-$ROS_DISTRO-octomap-ros ros-$ROS_DISTRO-joy python-vcstool

Before continuing, make sure that your protobuf compiler version is 3.0.0. To check this out, type in a terminal protoc --version. If This is not the case, then check out this guide on how to do it.

Get catkin tools

Get catkin tools with the following commands:

sudo apt-get install python-pip
sudo pip install catkin-tools

Create a catkin workspace

Create a catkin workspace with the following commands:

cd
mkdir -p catkin_ws/src
cd catkin_ws
catkin config --init --mkdirs --extend /opt/ros/$ROS_DISTRO --merge-devel --cmake-args -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release

Install Flightmare

Clone the repository

cd ~/catkin_ws/src
git clone https://github.com/uzh-rpg/flightmare.git

Clone dependencies:

vcs-import < flightmare/flightros/dependencies.yaml

Build:

catkin build

Add sourcing of your catkin workspace and FLIGHTMARE_PATH environment variable to your .bashrc file:

echo "source ~/catkin_ws/devel/setup.bash" >> ~/.bashrc
echo "export FLIGHTMARE_PATH=~/catkin_ws/src/flightmare" >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc

Download Flightmare Unity Binary

Download the Flightmare Unity Binary RPG_Flightmare.tar.xz for rendering from the Releases and extract it into the /path/to/flightmare/flightrender.

Download

Run Flightmare

Run pip

To use unity rendering, you need first download the binary from Releases and extract it into the flightrender folder. To enable unity for visualization, double click the extracted executable file RPG_Flightmare.x84-64 and then test a pre-trained controller.

conda activate ENVNAME
cd /path/to/flightmare/flightrl
pip install .
cd examples
python3 run_drone_control.py --train 0 --render 1

Run ROS

In this example, we show how to use the RotorS for the quadrotor dynamics modelling, rpg_quadrotor_control for model-based controller, and Flightmare for image rendering.

# The examples are by default not built.
catkin build flightros -DBUILD_SAMPLES:=ON

# Now you can run any example.
roslaunch flightros rotors_gazebo.launch

We hope this example can serve as a starting point for many other applications. For example, Flightmare can be used with other multirotor models that comes with RotorS such as AscTec Hummingbird, the AscTec Pelican, or the AscTec Firefly. The default controller in rpg_quadrotor_control is a PID controller. Users have the option to use more advanced controller in this framework, such as Perception-Aware Model Predictive Control.