Advanced Control Systems Lab Physics Simulator

📚 Overview

This codebase is a C++ implementation of Project Chrono that provides a high-fidelity physics engine to perform model-in-the-loop, software-in-the-loop, and hardware-in-the-loop simulations with the freeware, open-source, PX4-compatible ACSL Flightstack Winged. The codebase leverages the Chrono simulation environment to test various GNC (Guidance, Navigation and Control) algorithms prior to real-world flights, enabling debugging, optimization, and tuning of algorithms formulated at the Advanced Control Systems Lab (ACSL) at Virginia Tech.

System Requirements

• RAM: At least 16 GB
• GPU: Nvidia
• Operating System: Ubuntu 20.04 or above

Current Setup

Component	Details
CPU	AMD Ryzen 5 9600X
GPU	Nvidia RTX 3080 (10 GB)
Operating System	Ubuntu 24.04
RAM	32 GB

💻 How to Use the Repository

1. Clone the repository

To clone this repo with all the needed submodules run the command:

git clone --recurse-submodules https://github.com/girimugundankumar/acsl-physics-sim.git

Update all the submodules to the stable version

# Navigate into the simulator directory
cd <path-to-repository>/acsl-physics-sim

# Update the submodules
git submodule update --init --recursive

2. Build the dependencies

After cloning the project and all its dependencies in the previous step, build the dependecies for the project here.

Opitional - Solidworks Add-in

After cloning the project and all its dependcies in the previous step, follow the guide here for installation and usage instructions.

Note

You will need the solidworks plugin to import new UAV platforms for use in the simulator.

📝 License

This project is licensed under the BSD 3-Clause License. See the file for details. The Chrono Project is licensed under the BSD 3-Clause License. See the file for more details.