Simulation Installation and Environment Setup (Windows)

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Note: This page applies only to Windows users.

Table of Contents

It is recommended you follow this tutorial in the order listed.

Installing Unreal Engine

We will be using Unreal Engine for simulating virtual drones. If you have the Epic Games Launcher installed already (e.g., if you own Fortnite), you can download Unreal Engine from the “Unreal Engine” tab. If you don’t have the Epic Games Launcher, then you will have to download it to install Unreal Engine.

The Unreal Engine version you will download is 5.2.1. Project AirSim, which allows us to simulate multirotors in Unreal, will only work for this version.

Once Unreal Engine has finished downloading, you will need to run it once before doing anything else. You can continue on to the following steps until told otherwise.

Installing Git

Go to the following link and download Git. The installer should prompt you to set up your credentials needed for downloading GitHub repositories

Installing Containers

We run the flight-code environment and the ArduPilot simulation in containers, managed with Podman inside WSL. Head to our container setup page and follow the instructions there, then come back here.

Installing Project AirSim

Visual Studio

To install Project AirSim, you must first install Microsoft’s Visual Studio Community 2022. This will also be the IDE you will use for programming C++ code for Unreal.

When installing Visual Studio, there are several things you must check for the simulation to work.

You will need to go to C:\Users\<YOUR_USER>\AppData\Unreal Engine\UnrealBuildTool\BuildConfiguration.xml

Now replace the contents of BuildConfiguration.xml with the following:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<Configuration xmlns="https://www.unrealengine.com/BuildConfiguration">
    <WindowsPlatform>
        <CompilerVersion>14.37.32822</CompilerVersion>
    </WindowsPlatform>
</Configuration>

Project AirSim

Project AirSim is an Unreal Engine plugin for simulating multirotors and cars that is maintained by IAMAISIM; it is the backbone of simulation.

To install Project AirSim, follow these steps:

  1. clone the AirSim GitHub repository: git clone https://github.com/iamaisim/ProjectAirSim.git
    • the location of your local copy does not matter, as long as you know where it is.
  2. Make sure to close out of all terminals opened prior to this step, if you don’t environment variables can and will break.
  3. Launch x64 Native Tools Command Prompt for VS 2022 (using Windows search)
    • Navigate to where you cloned Project AirSim with the cd command
    • Run set UE_ROOT=C:\path\to\UE_5.2
    • Run the command build.cmd all
    • Wait for Project AirSim to build
      • You can move on to the next step while waiting, this will take a while.

Environment Setup

Simulation Git Repository

For accessing/editing the actual simulation repository do:

git clone https://github.com/MissouriMRR/Simulation.git

The simulation code lives as a submodule inside the competition repository, so clone the competition repo with submodules rather than cloning the simulation repo on its own.

Open a terminal (by typing Terminal in the Windows search), cd to where you want the repository, and run:

git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/MissouriMRR/<REPO>.git

This creates a <REPO>\ directory, with the simulation code at <REPO>\simulation\. If you have already cloned it without --recurse-submodules, run this from inside the repository to fill the submodule in:

git submodule update --init --recursive

The containers run inside WSL, so clone somewhere WSL can reach. A path on your Windows drive is fine — WSL sees it under /mnt/c/....

Simulation Unreal Repository

We have our own self-hosted GitHub repository on the bay computer (Ricky), to get access to you will need to do a few things:

  1. Run ssh-keygen -t ed25519 -C "your_email@example.com" in a terminal.
    1. You can press ‘Enter’ 3x to skip through setting whether you want the file to require a passphrase. Or you can set it, just don’t forget it
    2. Run cat ~/.ssh/id_ed25519.pub in a terminal
    3. Copy the output to your clipboard
  2. Message this to the Simulation Project Lead or Special Projects Lead with context, and they should be able to get you set up
  3. Once they give you the go-ahead, you will need to be on the school’s network.
    1. If you are not, you can still access it, you just need to download the school’s VPN
    2. At https://openvpn.mst.edu/ download the correct OpenVPN client for your computer
    3. Also download the latest .ovpn file under Configuration Files
    4. Once both have downloaded and you have installed the OpenVPN software, there will be a button to upload a file
    5. Press said button and select the .ovpn file you downloaded earlier
    6. You are now on the school’s WiFi!
  4. Now you should be able to download the repository with git clone git@131.151.19.149:SimulationRepository.git

Next Steps

If you’ve run all the above steps, you’re environment should be set up!

Next, you should go to the flying page to see how to fly the virtual drone with Python code.