Configuration and Installation

General recommendations

The CrowdBot simulator requires Unity and ROS. The recommended operating system is Ubuntu 18.04 LTS (long time support). However, it is possible to use the simulator with Windows 10 (with Windows subsystem Linux) and IOS (with a virtual machine).

The CrowdBot simulator itself needs 30 GB of free space on your hard drive.

You will actually need more space for Unity, ROS, a (eventual) virtual machine or Windows Subsystem Linux.

We recommend to use this simulator with the minimum configuration:

• RAM : 32GB
• Processor : Intel® Core™ i7-7920HQ CPU @ 3.10GHz × 8
• Graphics : Nvidia Quadro M2200 (or GTX1050)
• Disk : minimum 30GB

Table of Content

• General recommendations
• Table of Content
• Using Linux (recommended)
  • Ubuntu (recommended)
  • ROS
  • Git clone the project
  • Catkin
  • Unity Hub
  • Unity
  • Mono
• Using other Linux distribution
• Windows
• IOS

Using Linux (recommended)

Ubuntu (recommended)

• Version : Ubuntu Bionic Beaver 18.04 LTS

• Installation:

You will find an image of the OS in this Download section of the Ubuntu website.

Please refer to the Ubuntu website for tutorials and questions regarding the installation of this distribution.

ROS

ROS (Robot Operating System) provides libraries and tools to help software developers create robot applications. It provides hardware abstraction, device drivers, libraries, visualizers, message-passing, package management, and more. ROS is licensed under an open source, BSD license.

• Version: Melodic (LTS)

• Installation: Use the following link fory a full detailed installation tutorial: Melodic (LTS)

• Quick installation:

In a terminal:

sudo sh -c 'echo "deb http://packages.ros.org/ros/ubuntu $(lsb_release -sc) main" > /etc/apt/sources.list.d/ros-latest.list'
sudo apt-key adv --keyserver 'hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com:80' --recv-key C1CF6E31E6BADE8868B172B4F42ED6FBAB17C654
sudo apt update
sudo apt install ros-melodic-desktop-full
echo "source /opt/ros/melodic/setup.bash" >> ~/.bashrc
source ~/.bashrc
sudo apt install python-rosdep python-rosinstall python-rosinstall-generator python-wstool build-essential
sudo rosdep init
rosdep update

You will also need to install the ROS package "rosbridge" which connects ROS and unity together.

sudo apt-get install ros-melodic-rosbridge-suite

Git clone the project

mkdir -p ~/CrowdBot_simulator/
cd ~/CrowdBot_simulator
git clone git@gitlab.inria.fr:CrowdBot/CrowdBotUnity.git
git submodule init
git submodule update

Catkin

catkin is the official build system of ROS and the successor to the original ROS build system, rosbuild. catkin combines CMake macros and Python scripts to provide some functionality on top of CMake's normal workflow. catkin was designed to be more conventional than rosbuild, allowing for better distribution of packages, better cross-compiling support, and better portability. catkin's workflow is very similar to CMake's but adds support for automatic 'find package' infrastructure and building multiple, dependent projects at the same time.

• Version: see ROS version

• Installation: If not installed with ros, run the following command in a terminal.

sudo apt-get update && sudo apt-get install ros-melodic-catkin

Also, you should create a catkin workspace, where your ros nodes will be built. A submodule in the CrowdBotUnity project is present for this purpose.

cd ~/CrowdBot_simulator/catkin_crowdbotsim
catkin_make

Unity Hub

• Version: Latest

• Installation:

The best way to use Unity under Linux is by installing Unity Hub which allows you to manage your different projects and the different versions of Unity installed on your hard drive.

First download the AppImage file by clicking on "Download Unity Hub" on this page.

In a terminal:

mkdir ~/Softwares
mv ~/Downloads/UnityHub.AppImage ~/Softwares/
chmod +x ~/Software/UnityHub.AppImage

You can now launch Unity Hub like a standard application by clicking on it or executing the command ~/Software/UnityHub.AppImage & in a terminal.

Unity

• Version: at least 2018. (Highly Recommended: latest 2019 version).

To install a specific version in unity hub:

~/Downloads/UnityHub.AppImage unityhub://2020.1.3f1/cf5c4788e1d8

• Installation

In the Unity Hub, click on:

Installs => Add => Select Unity 2019.X.X (the latest 2019 version) => Next => select "Documentation" => Done

This manipulation will install Unity on your computer.

Mono

Sponsored by Microsoft, Mono is an open source implementation of Microsoft's .NET Framework based on the ECMA standards for C# and the Common Language Runtime. A growing family of solutions and an active and enthusiastic contributing community is helping position Mono to become the leading choice for development of cross platform applications.

• Version : see Ubuntu version

• Installation:

Install Mono here

• Quick install:

In a terminal, run the following commands

sudo apt install gnupg ca-certificates
sudo apt-key adv --keyserver hkp://keyserver.ubuntu.com:80 --recv-keys 3FA7E0328081BFF6A14DA29AA6A19B38D3D831EF
echo "deb https://download.mono-project.com/repo/ubuntu stable-bionic main" | sudo tee /etc/apt/sources.list.d/mono-official-stable.list
sudo apt update
sudo apt install mono-devel

Using other Linux distribution

Other Linux distros have not been tested. However, it should be possible as both ROS and Unity provide their software for other distros.

Windows

IOS