LGSVL Simulator: An Autonomous Vehicle Simulator

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Table of Contents

Introduction top#

LG Electronics America R&D Center has developed a Unity-based multi-robot simulator for autonomous vehicle developers. We provide an out-of-the-box solution which can meet the needs of developers wishing to focus on testing their autonomous vehicle algorithms. It currently has integration with the TierIV's Autoware and Baidu's Apollo 5.0 and Apollo 3.0 platforms, can generate HD maps, and be immediately used for testing and validation of a whole system with little need for custom integrations. We hope to build a collaborative community among robotics and autonomous vehicle developers by open sourcing our efforts.

To use the simulator with Apollo, after following the build steps for the simulator, follow the guide on our Apollo 5.0 fork.

To use the simulator with Autoware, build the simulator then follow the guide on our Autoware fork.

Getting Started top#

You can find complete and the most up-to-date guides on our documentation website.

Running the simulator with reasonable performance and frame rate (for perception related tasks) requires a high performance desktop. Below is the recommended system for running the simulator at high quality. We are currently working on performance improvements for a better experience.

Recommended system:

  • 4 GHz Quad core CPU
  • Nvidia GTX 1080 (8GB memory)
  • Windows 10 64 Bit

The easiest way to get started with running the simulator is to download our latest release and run as a standalone executable.

For the latest functionality or if you want to modify the simulator for your own needs, you can checkout our source, open it as a project in Unity, and run inside the Unity Editor. Otherwise, you can build the Unity project into a standalone executable.

Currently, running the simulator in Windows yields better performance than running on Linux.

If running Apollo or Autoware on the same system as the Simulator, it is recommended to upgrade to a GPU with at least 10GB memory.

If running Apollo or Autoware on a different system as the Simulator, a gigabit connection between the systems is required (a gigabit switch is sufficient, gigabit internet is not required).

Downloading and starting simulator top#

  1. Download the latest release of the LGSVL Simulator for your supported operating system (Windows or Linux) here: https://github.com/lgsvl/simulator/releases/latest
  2. Verify that the latest NVIDIA driver is installed
    • On Windows
      1. Open NVIDIA GeForce Experience
      2. Go the Drivers tab
      3. Check for Updates
      4. Download and install update if available
      5. Alternatively download driver manually from NVIDIA's website
    • On Ubuntu
      1. Add the Graphics Drivers PPA from here under Adding this PPA to your system
      2. Open Software & Updates
      3. Go to the Additional Drivers tab
      4. Select the latest NVIDIA driver
      5. In a terminal also install libvulkan with sudo apt install libvulkan1
  3. Unzip the downloaded folder and run the executable.

Building and running from source#

Check out our instructions for getting started with building from source here.

Simulator Instructions top#

  1. After starting the simulator, you should see a button "Open Browser..." to open the UI in the browser. Click the button.
  2. Go to the Simulations tab and select the appropriate map and vehicle. For a standard setup, select "BorregasAve" for map and "Jaguar2015XE (Apollo 5.0)" for vehicle. Click "Run" to begin.
  3. The vehicle/robot should spawn inside the map environment that was selected. Read here for an explanation of all current keyboard shortcuts and controls.
  4. Follow the guides on our respective Autoware and Apollo 5.0 repositories for instructions on running the platforms with the simulator.

Guide to simulator functionality top#

Look here for a guide to currently available functionality and keyboard shortcuts for using the simulator.

Contact top#

Please feel free to provide feedback or ask questions by creating a Github issue. For inquiries about collaboration, please email us at contact@lgsvlsimulator.com.