Kompass Simulation Suite

kompass-sim provides ready-to-use simulation and testing environments for 2D robot navigation, fully integrated with Kompass stack. This repository is created for rapid testing, visualization, and validation of autonomous navigation algorithms.

📦 Installation

1. Clone the Repository

cd ~/ros2_ws/src
git clone https://github.com/automatika-robotics/kompass-sim.git

2. Install Dependencies

• If you're using rosdep for the first time:

sudo rosdep init
rosdep update

• Then install the required dependencies:

rosdep install --from-paths src -y --ignore-src

3. Build the Workspace

cd ~/ros2_ws
colcon build
source install/setup.bash

Running Simulations

Launch a simulation environment (e.g., TurtleBot3 in Webots):

ros2 launch kompass_sim webots_turtlebot3.launch.py

This brings up the robot in a Webots, ready to be controlled by Kompass (see KOmpass quick start instructions).

🐳 Running with Docker

If you don't have ROS 2 installed, you can run the simulation from a prebuilt container instead. The image is based on ROS 2 Jazzy, contains this package and all of its dependencies, and already ships Webots inside it. The default command runs the quick-start launch file above (webots_turtlebot3.launch.py).

The container is meant to be run with:

• --network host, so a Kompass/EMOS stack running outside the container (on the host or another machine) can discover and talk to the simulation over DDS, and
• access to the host's X server and GPU, so the Webots and RViz windows show up on your screen.

1. Get the image

Pull the prebuilt image from Automatika's registry:

docker pull automatika/kompass-sim:jazzy

…or build it locally from the repository root:

docker build -t automatika/kompass-sim:jazzy .

2. Allow the container to use your display

Run this once per login session on the host:

xhost +local:root

3. Run the simulation

docker run -it --rm \
  --network host \
  --ipc host \
  --env DISPLAY="$DISPLAY" \
  --env QT_X11_NO_MITSHM=1 \
  --volume /tmp/.X11-unix:/tmp/.X11-unix:rw \
  --device /dev/dri:/dev/dri \
  automatika/kompass-sim:jazzy

This starts Webots + the robot driver + localization + RViz, exactly like the native quick start. Kompass running on the host can now be pointed at the simulation.

Notes

• NVIDIA GPUs: install the NVIDIA Container Toolkit and add --gpus all --env NVIDIA_DRIVER_CAPABILITIES=all to the docker run command (you can drop --device /dev/dri in that case).
• Talking to Kompass/EMOS: with --network host discovery happens on localhost. Make sure both sides share the same ROS_DOMAIN_ID (add --env ROS_DOMAIN_ID=<id> if you set one on the host) and the same RMW_IMPLEMENTATION.
• Simpler privileges: if the X11/device flags above are inconvenient, adding --privileged is a coarser alternative that also gives the container display access.
• Run something else: append any command to override the default launch, e.g. docker run ... automatika/kompass-sim:jazzy bash for a shell, or ... ros2 launch kompass_sim webots_turtlebot3_rgbd.launch.py.

📚 Related Projects

• kompass – Event-driven, eay-to-use and GPU powered navigation stack
• kompass-core – Core motion planning and control library

Copyright

The code in this distribution is Copyright (c) 2025 Automatika Robotics unless explicitly indicated otherwise.

Kompass is made available under the MIT license. Details can be found in the LICENSE file.

Contributing

We welcome issues, feature requests, and PRs. Feel free to fork and improve!