Launch Gazebo from ROS 2

Gazebo can be launched from a ROS 2 launch system in multiple ways:

Using the launch files included in

ros_gz_sim.

The package ros_gz_sim contains two launch files named gz_server.launch.py and gz_sim.launch.py. You can use them to start Gazebo server or Gazebo (server and GUI) respectively.

ros2 launch ros_gz_sim gz_sim.launch.py gz_args:=empty.sdf

Or you can just start the server:

ros2 launch ros_gz_sim gz_server.launch.py world_sdf_file:=empty.sdf

Consult the argument block of each launch file here and here to learn about the different parameters that are accepted by each launch file.

Using a custom launch file.

XML

It’s also possible to start Gazebo from your custom launch file. For that purpose we have created the custom <gz_server/> tag that can be used from your XML launch file. In this case, the arguments are passed as attributes within this tag. Here’s an example for launching Gazebo server:

<launch>
  <arg name="world_sdf_file" default="empty.sdf" />
  <arg name="world_sdf_string" default="" />
  <arg name="container_name" default="ros_gz_container" />
  <arg name="use_composition" default="True" />
  <gz_server 
    world_sdf_file="$(var world_sdf_file)"
    world_sdf_string="$(var world_sdf_string)"
    container_name="$(var container_name)"
    use_composition="$(var use_composition)">
  </gz_server>
</launch>

In this case the <gz_server> parameters are read from the command line. That’s an option but not strictly necessary as you could decide to hardcode some of the values.

Python

Python launch files provide more low-level customization and logic compared to XML launch files. In the following example, the user can specify a world argument to launch an environment for the Moon, Mars, or Enceladus. It additionally sets the resource path environment variable and sets up empty arrays for topics to be bridged and remapped from Gazebo to ROS 2:

from ament_index_python.packages import get_package_share_directory
from launch import LaunchDescription
from launch.actions import (DeclareLaunchArgument, SetEnvironmentVariable, 
                            IncludeLaunchDescription, SetLaunchConfiguration)
from launch.substitutions import PathJoinSubstitution, LaunchConfiguration, TextSubstitution
from launch_ros.actions import Node
from launch.launch_description_sources import PythonLaunchDescriptionSource


def generate_launch_description():
    pkg_ros_gz_sim = get_package_share_directory('ros_gz_sim')
    pkg_spaceros_gz_sim = get_package_share_directory('spaceros_gz_sim')
    gz_launch_path = PathJoinSubstitution([pkg_ros_gz_sim, 'launch', 'gz_sim.launch.py'])
    gz_model_path = PathJoinSubstitution([pkg_spaceros_gz_sim, 'models'])

    return LaunchDescription([
        DeclareLaunchArgument(
            'world',
            default_value='moon',
            choices=['moon', 'mars', 'enceladus'],
            description='World to load into Gazebo'
        ),
        SetLaunchConfiguration(name='world_file', 
                               value=[LaunchConfiguration('world'), 
                                      TextSubstitution(text='.sdf')]),
        SetEnvironmentVariable('GZ_SIM_RESOURCE_PATH', gz_model_path),
        IncludeLaunchDescription(
            PythonLaunchDescriptionSource(gz_launch_path),
            launch_arguments={
                'gz_args': [PathJoinSubstitution([pkg_spaceros_gz_sim, 'worlds',
                                                  LaunchConfiguration('world_file')])],
                'on_exit_shutdown': 'True'
            }.items(),
        ),
        Node(
            package='ros_gz_bridge',
            executable='parameter_bridge',
            arguments=[],
            remappings=[],
            output='screen'
        ),
    ])