Hello there, I want to use Gazebo to simulate a swarm of UAV (fixed wing or quad rotor). The swarm may have up to 100 individuals.
Can Gazebo support such a massive swarm simulation? What hardware (CPU, memory, GPU) may be required to run Gazebo with this simulation task?
Hello,
Gazebo should be able to handle that swarm size, but there are number of factors to consider.
1.The number and type of sensor on each UAV.
2. The complexity of the environment.
3. What control algorithms are used, and where they are executed.
4. Do you need to simulate aerodynamics, or can you get away with kinematic movement of the objects?
I recommend setting up a simulation with your desired parameters, and see what type of performance you achieve. If the performance is not satisfactory, then you can consider alternative strategies such as reducing environment complexity or running control algorithms on a separate PC(s).
I’d also have a look at threaded islands, which were added not so long ago. They should allow you to parallellize simulation if the UAVs do not interact with each other.