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Quick Start Demo#

Below you can find instructions on how to setup the self-driving demo of AWSIM simulation controlled by Autoware. The instruction assumes using the Ubuntu OS.

Demo configuration#

The simulation provided in the AWSIM demo is configured as follows:

AWSIM Demo Settings
Vehicle Lexus RX 450h
Environment Japan Tokyo Nishishinjuku
Sensors GNSS
IMU
3 x VLP16
Traffic Light Camera
Traffic Randomized traffic
ROS2 humble

PC specs#

Please make sure that your machine meets the following requirements in order to run the simulation correctly:

Required PC Specs
OS Ubuntu 22.04
CPU 6c12t or higher
GPU RTX 2080 or higher
Nvidia Driver (Ubuntu 22) 545

DDS configuration#

In order to run AWSIM Labs with the best performance and without hogging the network, please follow the steps below.

Add the following lines to ~/.bashrc file:

if [ ! -e /tmp/cycloneDDS_configured ]; then
    sudo sysctl -w net.core.rmem_max=2147483647
    sudo sysctl -w net.ipv4.ipfrag_time=3
    sudo sysctl -w net.ipv4.ipfrag_high_thresh=134217728     # (128 MB)
    sudo ip link set lo multicast on
    touch /tmp/cycloneDDS_configured
fi

Every time you restart this machine, and open a new terminal, the above commands will be executed.

Until you restart the machine, they will not be executed again.

CycloneDDS configuration#

Save the following as cyclonedds.xml in your home directory ~: 

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8" ?>
<CycloneDDS xmlns="https://cdds.io/config" xmlns:xsi="http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema-instance" xsi:schemaLocation="https://cdds.io/config https://raw.githubusercontent.com/eclipse-cyclonedds/cyclonedds/master/etc/cyclonedds.xsd">
    <Domain Id="any">
        <General>
            <Interfaces>
                <NetworkInterface name="lo" priority="default" multicast="default" />
            </Interfaces>
            <AllowMulticast>default</AllowMulticast>
            <MaxMessageSize>65500B</MaxMessageSize>
        </General>
        <Internal>
            <SocketReceiveBufferSize min="10MB"/>
            <Watermarks>
                <WhcHigh>500kB</WhcHigh>
            </Watermarks>
        </Internal>
    </Domain>
</CycloneDDS>

Make sure the following lines are added to the ~/.bashrc file:

export RMW_IMPLEMENTATION=rmw_cyclonedds_cpp
export CYCLONEDDS_URI=/home/your_username/cyclonedds.xml

Replace your_username with your actual username.

Note

You should use the absolute path to the cyclonedds.xml file.

Warning

A system restart is required for these changes to work.

Warning

DO NOT set export ROS_LOCALHOST_ONLY=1. CycloneDDS configuration will be enough.

Start the demo#

Running the AWSIM demo#

To run the simulator, please follow the steps below.

  1. Install Nvidia GPU driver (Skip if already installed).

    1. Add Nvidia driver to apt repository 
      sudo add-apt-repository ppa:graphics-drivers/ppa
sudo apt update
    2. Install the recommended version of the driver. 
      sudo ubuntu-drivers autoinstall

# or install a specific version (following was tested)
sudo apt install nvidia-driver-545
    3. Reboot your machine to make the installed driver detected by the system. 
      sudo reboot
    4. Open terminal and check if nvidia-smi command is available and outputs summary similar to the one presented below. 
      $ nvidia-smi
+---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
| NVIDIA-SMI 545.23.08              Driver Version: 545.23.08    CUDA Version: 12.3     |
|-----------------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
| GPU  Name                 Persistence-M | Bus-Id        Disp.A | Volatile Uncorr. ECC |
| Fan  Temp   Perf          Pwr:Usage/Cap |         Memory-Usage | GPU-Util  Compute M. |
|                                         |                      |               MIG M. |
|=========================================+======================+======================|
|   0  NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4080        On  | 00000000:08:00.0  On |                  N/A |
|  0%   36C    P8              12W / 320W |   5456MiB / 16376MiB |      2%      Default |
|                                         |                      |                  N/A |
+-----------------------------------------+----------------------+----------------------+
...

  2. Install Vulkan Graphics Library (Skip if already installed).

    1. Update the environment. 
      sudo apt update
    2. Install the library. 
      sudo apt install libvulkan1

  3. Download and Run AWSIM Demo binary.

    1. Download the latest release from:

      AWSIM Labs GitHub Releases Page

    2. Unzip the downloaded file.

    3. Make the file executable.

      Right click the awsim_labs.x86_64 file and check the Execute checkbox

      or execute the command below.

      chmod +x <path to AWSIM folder>/awsim_labs.x86_64

    4. Launch awsim_labs.x86_64. 

      ./<path to AWSIM folder>/awsim_labs.x86_64

      It may take some time for the application to start the so please wait until image similar to the one presented below is visible in your application window.

Launching Autoware#

In order to configure and run the Autoware software with the AWSIM demo, please:

  1. Download map files (pcd, osm) and unzip them. Download Map files (pcd, osm)

  2. Clone Autoware and move to the directory. 

    git clone https://github.com/autowarefoundation/autoware.git
cd autoware
  3. Switch branch to main. 
    git checkout main
  4. Configure the environment. (Skip if Autoware environment has been configured before) 
    ./setup-dev-env.sh
  5. Create the src directory and clone external dependent repositories into it. 
    mkdir src
vcs import src < autoware.repos
  6. Install dependent ROS packages. 
    source /opt/ros/humble/setup.bash
rosdep update
rosdep install -y --from-paths src --ignore-src --rosdistro $ROS_DISTRO

  7. Build the workspace. 

    colcon build --symlink-install --cmake-args -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=RelWithDebInfo -DCMAKE_EXPORT_COMPILE_COMMANDS=1

  8. Launch Autoware. 

    source install/setup.bash
ros2 launch autoware_launch e2e_simulator.launch.xml vehicle_model:=awsim_labs_vehicle sensor_model:=awsim_labs_sensor_kit map_path:=<absolute path of map folder> launch_vehicle_interface:=true

# Use the absolute path for the map folder, don't use the ~ operator.

# Example:
ros2 launch autoware_launch e2e_simulator.launch.xml vehicle_model:=awsim_labs_vehicle sensor_model:=awsim_labs_sensor_kit map_path:=/home/your_username/autoware_map/nishishinjuku_autoware_map launch_vehicle_interface:=true

Let's run the self driving simulation#

  1. Launch AWSIM and Autoware according to the steps described earlier in this document.

  2. The Autoware will automatically set its pose estimation as presented below.

  3. Set the navigation goal for the vehicle.

  4. Optionally, you can define an intermediate point through which the vehicle will travel on its way to the destination. The generated path can be seen on the image below.

  5. Enable self-driving.

To make the vehicle start navigating please engage its operation using the command below.

cd autoware
source install/setup.bash
ros2 topic pub /autoware/engage autoware_vehicle_msgs/msg/Engage '{engage: True}' -1

The self-driving simulation demo has been successfully launched!

Troubleshooting#

In case of any problems with running the sample AWSIM binary with Autoware, start with checking our Troubleshooting page with the most common problems.

Appendix#