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Sensors in AirSim

AirSim currently supports the following sensors. Each sensor is associated with a integer enum specifying its sensor type.

  • Camera
  • Barometer = 1
  • Imu = 2
  • Gps = 3
  • Magnetometer = 4
  • Distance Sensor = 5
  • Lidar = 6

Note : Cameras are configured differently than the other sensors and do not have an enum associated with them. Look at general settings and image API for camera config and API.

Default sensors

If no sensors are specified in the settings.json, the the following sensors are enabled by default based on the sim mode.

Multirotor

  • Imu
  • Magnetometer
  • Gps
  • Barometer

Car

  • Gps

ComputerVision

  • None

Behind the scenes, createDefaultSensorSettings method in AirSimSettings.hpp sets up the above sensors with their default parameters, depending on the sim mode specified in the settings.json file.

Configuring the default sensor list

The default sensor list can be configured in settings json:

"DefaultSensors": {
    "Barometer": {
         "SensorType": 1,
         "Enabled" : true
    },
    "Imu": {
         "SensorType": 2,
         "Enabled" : true
    },
    "Gps": {
         "SensorType": 3,
         "Enabled" : true
    },
    "Magnetometer": {
         "SensorType": 4,
         "Enabled" : true
    },
    "Distance": {
         "SensorType": 5,
         "Enabled" : true
    },
    "Lidar2": {
         "SensorType": 6,
         "Enabled" : true,
         "NumberOfChannels": 4,
         "PointsPerSecond": 10000
    }
},

Configuring vehicle-specific sensor list

If a vehicle provides its sensor list, it must provide the whole list. Selective add/remove/update of the default sensor list is NOT supported. A vehicle specific sensor list can be specified in the vehicle settings part of the json. e.g.,

"Vehicles": {

    "Drone1": {
        "VehicleType": "SimpleFlight",
        "AutoCreate": true,
        ...
        "Sensors": {
            "MyLidar1": {
                "SensorType": 6,
                "Enabled" : true,
                "NumberOfChannels": 16,
                "PointsPerSecond": 10000,
                "X": 0, "Y": 0, "Z": -1,
                "DrawDebugPoints": true
            },
            "MyLidar2": {
                "SensorType": 6,
                "Enabled" : true,
                "NumberOfChannels": 4,
                "PointsPerSecond": 10000,
                "X": 0, "Y": 0, "Z": -1,
                "DrawDebugPoints": true
            }
        }
    }
}

Sensor specific settings

Each sensor-type has its own set of settings as well. Please see lidar for example of Lidar specific settings.

Distance Sensor

By default, Distance Sensor points to the front of the vehicle. It can be pointed in any direction by modifying the settings

Configurable Parameters -

Parameter Description
X Y Z Position of the sensor relative to the vehicle (in NED, in meters) (Default (0,0,0)-Multirotor, (0,0,-1)-Car)
Yaw Pitch Roll Orientation of the sensor relative to the vehicle (degrees) (Default (0,0,0))
MinDistance Minimum distance measured by distance sensor (metres, only used to fill Mavlink message for PX4) (Default 0.2m)
MaxDistance Maximum distance measured by distance sensor (metres) (Default 40.0m)

For example, to make the sensor point towards the ground (for altitude measurement similar to barometer), the orientation can be modified as follows -

"Distance": {
    "SensorType": 5,
    "Enabled" : true,
    "Yaw": 0, "Pitch": -90, "Roll": 0
}

Note: For Cars, the sensor is placed 1 meter above the vehicle center by default. This is required since otherwise the sensor gives strange data due it being inside the vehicle. This doesn't affect the sensor values say when measuring the distance between 2 cars. See PythonClient/car/distance_sensor_multi.py for an example usage.

Server side visualization for debugging

Be default, the points hit by distance sensor are not drawn on the viewport. To enable the drawing of hit points on the viewport, please enable setting DrawDebugPoints via settings json. E.g. -

"Distance": {
    "SensorType": 5,
    "Enabled" : true,
    ...
    "DrawDebugPoints": true
}

Sensor APIs

Jump straight to hello_drone.py or hello_drone.cpp for example usage, or see follow below for the full API.

Barometer
msr::airlib::BarometerBase::Output getBarometerData(const std::string& barometer_name, const std::string& vehicle_name);
barometer_data = client.getBarometerData(barometer_name = "", vehicle_name = "")
IMU
msr::airlib::ImuBase::Output getImuData(const std::string& imu_name = "", const std::string& vehicle_name = "");
imu_data = client.getImuData(imu_name = "", vehicle_name = "")
GPS
msr::airlib::GpsBase::Output getGpsData(const std::string& gps_name = "", const std::string& vehicle_name = "");
gps_data = client.getGpsData(gps_name = "", vehicle_name = "")
Magnetometer
msr::airlib::MagnetometerBase::Output getMagnetometerData(const std::string& magnetometer_name = "", const std::string& vehicle_name = "");
magnetometer_data = client.getMagnetometerData(magnetometer_name = "", vehicle_name = "")
Distance sensor
msr::airlib::DistanceSensorData getDistanceSensorData(const std::string& distance_sensor_name = "", const std::string& vehicle_name = "");
distance_sensor_data = client.getDistanceSensorData(distance_sensor_name = "", vehicle_name = "")
Lidar

See the lidar page for Lidar API.