Recommend tools for simulation

[YuanbinCN]

It is really difficult to set up the simulation environment for Apollo as there is no official support from Apollo side as far as I know.

LGSVL did not maintain anymore and even though can download the its client, but need remote server to run it, which did not exist now.

For Carla, both tried,(https://github.com/MaisJamal/carla_apollo_bridge), and https://github.com/guardstrikelab/carla_apollo_bridge, neither can work. Some issues are very common and difficult to solve and seem no one can provide feedbacks now. Like this:(guardstrikelab/carla_apollo_bridge#201) and this:(MaisJamal/carla_apollo_bridge#19).

If don't have hardware, to setup Apollo Simulation is very difficult in my point of view. Do you have recommend versions to setup simulations in Apollo?

[daohu527]

@YuanbinCN You asked a good question! Let’s discuss the questiones you raised one by one.

1. LGSVL did not maintain anymore and even though can download the its client, but need remote server to run it, which did not exist now.

When I entered the autonomous driving industry, I used lgsvl, and I did some work based on it. I really want to maintain it, but I think I should follow the rules of the open source world. Either we can find a new successor, or I can't maintain it.

I currently have limited time, such as implementing the autonomous driving project, family, and some free time, so I will not start working on lgsvl in the short term.

For Carla, both tried,(https://github.com/MaisJamal/carla_apollo_bridge), and https://github.com/guardstrikelab/carla_apollo_bridge, neither can work. Some issues are very common and difficult to solve and seem no one can provide feedbacks now. Like this:(guardstrikelab/carla_apollo_bridge#201) and this:(MaisJamal/carla_apollo_bridge#19).

There are many issues involved here, some are hardware, some are software, and most machines are difficult to run simulations, network issues, including problems with the software itself, etc.

I don’t want to make excuses, the best way is to provide a cloud simulation environment, and we do have cloud experiments. The environment of individual developers varies greatly.

And I advocate lightweight simulation, such as simulating only planning. Simulating the entire perception is the direction of academic research, and it relies heavily on Carla.

This involves scene creation, map maintenance, simulation evaluation, etc. I think this is an interesting job, and this year we tried to cooperate with Carla officially, but due to some non-project reasons, I found it difficult to move forward. I think I might provide some unofficial support based on the existing version.

So this is the advice I can give, hope it helps you, and I need some time to figure out what to do next : )

[YuqiHuai]

Adding to Daohu's comment:

1. To address the issue of LGSVL sunsetting, I created https://github.com/YuqiHuai/SORA-SVL so you can run a local server. I tried my best to implement/maintain the service, I am able to run prior work like AV-FUZZER and newer work like BehAVExplor using this.
2. Following Daohu's suggestion of using "lightweight simulation", I built 2 SimControl based scenario generators. There are definitely issues with them, but that's how I avoided using tools like LGSVL/CARLA.

[YuanbinCN]

Adding to Daohu's comment:

1. To address the issue of LGSVL sunsetting, I created https://github.com/YuqiHuai/SORA-SVL so you can run a local server. I tried my best to implement/maintain the service, I am able to run prior work like AV-FUZZER and newer work like BehAVExplor using this.
2. Following Daohu's suggestion of using "lightweight simulation", I built 2 SimControl based scenario generators. There are definitely issues with them, but that's how I avoided using tools like LGSVL/CARLA.

Hi, thanks for your replay. May I ask what versions of Apollo, LGSVL can be used to run the simulation.Thanks!

[YuqiHuai]

@YuanbinCN Hi, DoppelTest and scenoRITA were both implemented using Apollo 7.0.
I later migrated DoppelTest to Apollo 8.0 https://github.com/YuqiHuai/eDoppelTest-for-Apollo-8.0 but I have not tested it extensively.

For LGSVL, I have been using the latest version, it should be 2021.03. I have not tested any other LGSVL version.