Sim Startup

Overview

Start IsaacLab sim and the ROS stack with three tmux windows: sim, robot, perception. The robot window runs only the minimal robot/TF/RViz (no perception). The perception window runs mole_perception_bringup plus excavation mapping.

Workflow

0) Preflight

• Identify the ROS container and Isaac container:
  • ROS container is the one running the moleworks_ros image.
  • Isaac container is the one running the isaac-lab-moleworks_ext-dev image.
• Always use the same ROS_DOMAIN_ID on both sides (example: 24).
• Use Cyclone DDS if already configured:
  • export RMW_IMPLEMENTATION=rmw_cyclonedds_cpp
  • export CYCLONEDDS_URI=file:///home/lorenzo/moleworks/ros2_ws/src/moleworks_ros/.ros/cyclonedds.xml
• Check for a running sim before starting a new one:
  • On the host, run nvidia-smi and look for processes like:
    • .../isaac_sim/kit/python/bin/python3
  • If you see one or more, stop the sim from the ROS container:
    • mole_sim_ctl stop
  • Re-run nvidia-smi and confirm those Isaac Sim processes are gone before starting a new sim.

1) Clean tmux organization

In your current tmux session, create three windows: sim, robot, perception.

• Never rename the user’s current window. If you need new windows, create them instead.
• If any of those windows already exist, ask before killing them; otherwise create new ones with the same names.
• Always capture pane output after each launch command.
• When launching via tmux send-keys, run commands as bash -lc '...; exec bash -i' so the window stays inspectable even if the command exits.

2) Start sim (window: sim)

Run inside the ROS container:

export ROS_DOMAIN_ID=24
export RMW_IMPLEMENTATION=rmw_cyclonedds_cpp
export CYCLONEDDS_URI=file:///home/lorenzo/moleworks/ros2_ws/src/moleworks_ros/.ros/cyclonedds.xml
source /opt/ros/jazzy/setup.bash
source /home/lorenzo/moleworks/ros2_ws/install/setup.bash
mole_sim_ctl terra

Capture the pane output immediately after launch.

3) Start robot (window: robot)

Robot/TF/RViz only (no perception):

export ROS_DOMAIN_ID=24
export RMW_IMPLEMENTATION=rmw_cyclonedds_cpp
export CYCLONEDDS_URI=file:///home/lorenzo/moleworks/ros2_ws/src/moleworks_ros/.ros/cyclonedds.xml
source /opt/ros/jazzy/setup.bash
source /home/lorenzo/moleworks/ros2_ws/install/setup.bash
ros2 launch mole_bringup robot.launch.py \
  use_sim_time:=true \
  on_machine:=false \
  launch_perception:=false \
  launch_rviz:=true \
  elevation_map_frame_mode:=map

If elevation_map_frame_mode is not accepted on your branch, drop that argument.

4) Start perception + excavation mapping (window: perception)

Run the perception bringup (it now includes excavation mapping).

• For sim, keep drivers off (no real lidar/camera drivers).
• Use a map name if you want a design map, or map_name:=none to initialize from live elevation.

export ROS_DOMAIN_ID=24
export RMW_IMPLEMENTATION=rmw_cyclonedds_cpp
export CYCLONEDDS_URI=file:///home/lorenzo/moleworks/ros2_ws/src/moleworks_ros/.ros/cyclonedds.xml
source /opt/ros/jazzy/setup.bash
source /home/lorenzo/moleworks/ros2_ws/install/setup.bash
ros2 launch mole_perception_bringup bringup.launch.py \
  use_sim_time:=true \
  enable_camera:=false \
  enable_lidar:=false \
  enable_elevation_mapping:=true \
  enable_robot_self_filter:=true \
  enable_excavation_mapping:=true \
  map_name:=excavation_site \
  use_local_mapping:=false

If you use map_name:=none, the excavation mapping launch will auto-wait for map -> CABIN_ANCHOR (default 30s)
when the desired-elevation override uses profile + CABIN_ANCHOR. You can override this behavior with:

ros2 launch mole_perception_bringup bringup.launch.py \
  use_sim_time:=true \
  enable_camera:=false \
  enable_lidar:=false \
  enable_elevation_mapping:=true \
  enable_robot_self_filter:=true \
  enable_excavation_mapping:=true \
  map_name:=none \
  use_local_mapping:=false \
  wait_for_cabin_anchor_tf:=auto \
  cabin_anchor_wait_timeout_s:=30.0

Capture the pane output after the command starts.

5) (Optional) Start Foxglove bridge (separate window: foxglove)

Keep Foxglove in its own tmux window (do not piggyback on robot).

• If foxglove already exists, ask before killing it; otherwise create it.
• Always capture the pane output after starting.

source /home/lorenzo/.bashrc
ros2 launch foxglove_bridge foxglove_bridge_launch.xml port:=8765

6) Quick sanity checks (optional)

Recommended: just inspect the three tmux windows (sim, robot, perception) and confirm nothing obviously failed (tracebacks, exceptions, nodes exiting, repeated [ERROR]).

If something looks wrong, run one or two of these (keep long timeouts for TF buffer warmup):

• ros2 topic echo /clock --once
• ros2 topic echo /mole/state --once --qos-reliability best_effort
• timeout 15 bash -c 'ros2 run tf2_ros tf2_echo map BASE 2>&1'
• timeout 15 bash -c 'ros2 run tf2_ros tf2_echo map CABIN_ANCHOR 2>&1'
  • tf2_echo may print “frame does not exist” for a few seconds while buffers warm up.

Notes

• Keep sim, robot, perception as the only three windows so output is easy to inspect.
• For real hardware runs, set on_machine:=true and enable sensors in the perception launch.
• TF is on /tf and /tf_static (not /mole/tf).
• CABIN_ANCHOR is only required for the desired-elevation profile override; the dig controller uses CABIN/BASE.
• Expected noise: the sim side runs ROS 2 Humble while the ROS container is Jazzy, so CycloneDDS commonly prints lots of warnings on both sides (for example: “Failed to parse type hash ... from USER_DATA (null)” and various serdata.cpp/rcutils error-state warnings). Treat these as normal unless topics/TF are actually missing.