Paper ID: 2307.05263

Pegasus Simulator: An Isaac Sim Framework for Multiple Aerial Vehicles Simulation

Marcelo Jacinto, João Pinto, Jay Patrikar, John Keller, Rita Cunha, Sebastian Scherer, António Pascoal

Developing and testing novel control and motion planning algorithms for aerial vehicles can be a challenging task, with the robotics community relying more than ever on 3D simulation technologies to evaluate the performance of new algorithms in a variety of conditions and environments. In this work, we introduce the Pegasus Simulator, a modular framework implemented as an NVIDIA Isaac Sim extension that enables real-time simulation of multiple multirotor vehicles in photo-realistic environments, while providing out-of-the-box integration with the widely adopted PX4-Autopilot and ROS2 through its modular implementation and intuitive graphical user interface. To demonstrate some of its capabilities, a nonlinear controller was implemented and simulation results for two drones performing aggressive flight maneuvers are presented. Code and documentation for this framework are also provided as supplementary material.

Submitted: Jul 11, 2023