AirSim

AirSim

Original author(s)	Microsoft Research
Developer(s)	Microsoft and community
Initial release	February 16, 2017; 7 years ago (2017-02-16)
Stable release	1.8.1 / July 17, 2022; 2 years ago (2022-07-17)[1]
Repository	github.com/microsoft/AirSim
Written in	C++
Engine	Unreal Engine 4
Operating system	Windows 10, macOS, Linux
Type	Flight simulator
License	MIT License
Website	microsoft.github.io/AirSim

AirSim (Aerial Informatics and Robotics Simulation) is an open-source, cross platform simulator for drones, ground vehicles such as cars and various other objects, built on Epic Games’ proprietary Unreal Engine 4 as a platform for AI research.^[2] It is developed by Microsoft and can be used to experiment with deep learning, computer vision and reinforcement learning algorithms for autonomous vehicles.^[3][4] This allows testing of autonomous solutions without worrying about real-world damage.^[5]

AirSim provides some 12 kilometers of roads with 20 city blocks and APIs to retrieve data and control vehicles in a platform independent way. The APIs are accessible via a variety of programming languages, including C++, C#, Python and Java. AirSim supports hardware-in-the-loop with driving wheels and flight controllers such as PX4 for physically and visually realistic simulations. The platform also supports common robotic platforms, such as Robot Operating System (ROS).^[6] It is developed as an Unreal plug-in that can be dropped into any Unreal environment.^[7] An experimental release for a Unity plug-in is also available.^[8][9]

See also

• Vehicle simulation game
• Microsoft Flight Simulator^[10]

References

1. "Tags · microsoft/AirSim · GitHub". GitHub AirSim repository. Retrieved 2022-07-20.
2. "Microsoft AI simulator includes autonomous car research". www.digitaljournal.com. November 26, 2017.
3. "Open source simulator for autonomous vehicles built on Unreal Engine / Unity, from Microsoft AI & Research: Microsoft/AirSim". GitHub. 30 March 2020.
4. "Microsoft AirSim, a Simulator for Drones and Robots". InfoQ.
5. Vallance, Chris (18 July 2022). "Microsoft launches simulator to train drone AI systems". BBC News. Retrieved 20 July 2022.
6. "Aerial Informatics and Robotics Platform". Microsoft Research.
7. "Aerial Autonomy: Project AirSim". Microsoft AI.
8. "AirSim on Unity: Experiment with autonomous vehicle simulation". blogs.unity3d.com. November 14, 2018.
9. "Microsoft's open source AirSim platform comes to Unity". VentureBeat. November 14, 2018.
10. "Aviator Simulator Online: Advanced Pilot Training Tool". 2022-07-13. Retrieved 2024-10-14.

Further reading

• Shital Shah; Debadeepta Dey; Chris Lovett; Ashish Kapoor (2017-11-03). "AirSim: High-Fidelity Visual and Physical Simulation for Autonomous Vehicles". arXiv:1705.05065 [cs.RO].

External links

• Official website
• Aerial Informatics and Robotics Platform - Microsoft Research