Virtual Machine with ROS Indigo and Gazebo for Robotics System Toolbox™

Overview

This page lists installation instructions for the virtual machine that is a supplement to Robotics System Toolbox™. You can use MATLAB® and Simulink® to work with the Gazebo robot simulator and an external ROS (Robot Operating System) network.
The virtual machine works on multiple platforms (Windows, Mac, Linux) and contains the following:

ROS Indigo Desktop installation
Gazebo robot simulator 2.2.3
Example Gazebo worlds for a simulated TurtleBot® and PR2®

Supported platforms include 64-bit Windows®, 64-bit Linux® and 64-bit Mac OS X. The installation instructions are listed by your host platform.

Platform-Specific Installation Instructions

Windows (64-bit)

Download and install the VMware® Player software (license)
Download the archive containing the virtual machine
Decompress the archive to a location on your hard drive
Start VMware Player
In VMware Player, press Open a Virtual Machine
Browse to the location of the Ubuntu image, select ROS Indigo Gazebo v3 and press OK
The virtual machine is now added to your library
In VMware Player, start the virtual machine
Press I copied it if a window opens that asks if you copied or moved the virtual machine

Linux (64-bit)

Download the VMware® Player software bundle (license)
Install VMware Player by executing the bundle installer with administrative privileges
Download the archive containing the virtual machine
Decompress the archive to a location on your hard drive
Start VMware Player
In VMware Player, press Open a Virtual Machine
Browse to the location of the Ubuntu image, select ROS Indigo Gazebo v3 and press OK
The virtual machine is now added to your library
In VMware Player, start the virtual machine
Press I copied it if a window opens that asks if you copied or moved the virtual machine

Mac OS X (64-bit)

This platform uses VirtualBox® to run the virtual machine, because VMware Player is not available for the Mac. If you have a valid license for VMware Fusion®, you can follow the installation instructions for Windows instead.

Download and install VirtualBox® for OS X hosts (license)
Download the virtual machine to a folder on your hard drive
Start VirtualBox
In VirtualBox, select the Import Appliance entry in the File menu
Select the file you just downloaded and press Next
Verify the virtual machine settings and press Import. The import process might take a few minutes.
The virtual machine is now added to your library
In VirtualBox, start the virtual machine
Depending on your host's network configuration, you might have to adjust the network settings of the virtual machine. If on first start, the virtual machine displays a warning that a network interface was not found, press Change Network Settings and select the Name of your host's primary network adapter.

Using the Virtual Machine

Please refer to the examples in Robotics System Toolbox to see how this virtual machine can be used.

Troubleshooting

In order to run the virtual machine, your processor's virtualization extensions have to be enabled in the BIOS (see this article for more information)
By default, the virtual machine uses 2 CPU cores and allocates a maximum of 2,048 MB of RAM. If your computer does not support these default settings, you have to modify the virtual machine settings before starting it.
To enable ROS communication between MATLAB® and the virtual machine, you might have to disable your firewall or antivirus software. ROS arbitrarily assigns port numbers to nodes, so depending on your firewall configuration, communication between nodes might be blocked.