Foxglove Lunar Lander Simulator

This is a lunar lander simulator that uses the Foxglove app as its UI. The simulator is written against the Foxglove SDK, as a way to demo some of its functionality.

In this game, you're piloting an Apollo lunar lander.

Prerequisites

You'll want to use a gamepad for this. I've tested with a PS4 controller, but anything with dual joysticks should be fine.

Extensions

This game depends on some unreleased extensions.

• Joystick: Joystick controls
• Foxglove Navball: Attitude indicator

The joystick extension is publicly available in the extension registry, but there are some very useful commits (e.g., to save state) since the last release. It's worth installing from git.

To install these, clone the repos, open the Foxglove desktop app, and do:

$ npm install
$ npm run local-install

Layouts

You'll want to import the following layouts:

• foxglove-lunar-lander-live.json
• foxglove-lunar-lander-viewer.json

Running the game

Run the game server on your local machine:

$ cargo build
$ cargo run --release

In foxglove desktop, open a live websocket connection to ws://localhost:8765, and use the foxglove-lunar-lander-live layout.

Controls

You'll want a gamepad. If you're using a PS4 controller, the controls are:

• D-pad up/down: Tap to increase/decrease the target vertical velocity
• Left stick: Strafe using RCS boosters
• Right stick: Adjust pitch and roll using RCS boosters
• L2/R2: Hold to adjust yaw
• PS button: Start or reset

You might find that your controller's button mappings are different from mine. If that's the case, you can write your own gamepad.json. You can use the joystick panel's "Auto-generated" display to figure out which indexes correspond to the physical axes and buttons that you want to use.

Recorded games

Each game is exported to an MCAP recording in the local recordings/ directory. To view a recording, use the foxglove-lunar-lander-viewer layout.

If you want to automatically upload recording metadata to Foxglove after each game, you can point the Foxglove agent at your recording directory.

At the moment, the lander model isn't stored in the recording; it's just a reference to package://assets/apollo.dae. You'll need to configure the ROS package path accordingly.

Unfinished business

• Attitude control assistance
• Embed model data in the /lander channel