autoware_carla_interface

ROS 2 / Autoware Universe bridge for CARLA simulator

Thanks to https://github.com/gezp for ROS 2 Humble support for CARLA Communication. This ros package enables communication between Autoware and CARLA for autonomous driving simulation.

Supported Environment

Setup

Install

Prerequisites

1. Install CARLA 0.9.15: Follow the CARLA Installation Guide

2. Install CARLA Python Package: Install CARLA 0.9.15 ROS 2 Humble communication package
   • Option A: Install the wheel using pip
   • Option B: Add the egg file to your PYTHONPATH
3. Download CARLA Lanelet2 Maps: Get the y-axis inverted maps from CARLA Autoware Contents

Map Setup

1. Download the maps (y-axis inverted version) to an arbitrary location
2. Create the map folder structure in $HOME/autoware_map:
   • Rename point_cloud/Town01.pcd → $HOME/autoware_map/Town01/pointcloud_map.pcd
   • Rename vector_maps/lanelet2/Town01.osm → $HOME/autoware_map/Town01/lanelet2_map.osm
3. Create $HOME/autoware_map/Town01/map_projector_info.yaml with:

   projector_type: Local
   

Build

colcon build --symlink-install --cmake-args -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release

Run

1. Run carla, change map, spawn object if you need

   cd CARLA
   ./CarlaUE4.sh -prefernvidia -quality-level=Low -RenderOffScreen
   

1. Run Autoware with CARLA

   ros2 launch autoware_launch e2e_simulator.launch.xml \
       map_path:=$HOME/autoware_map/Town01 \
       vehicle_model:=sample_vehicle \
       sensor_model:=carla_sensor_kit \
       simulator_type:=carla \
       carla_map:=Town01
   

1. Set initial pose (Init by GNSS)
2. Set goal position
3. Wait for planning
4. Engage

Viewing Multi-Camera View in RViz

The carla_sensor_kit includes 6 cameras providing 360-degree coverage (Front, Front-Left, Front-Right, Back, Back-Left, Back-Right). A multi-camera combiner node automatically combines all camera feeds into a single 2x3 grid view.

To view the combined camera feed in RViz:

1. In the Displays panel (left side), click the “Add” button
2. Select the “By topic” tab
3. Navigate to /sensing/camera/all_cameras/image_raw
4. Select “Image” display type
5. Click OK

The combined view shows all 6 cameras with labels: FL (Front-Left), F (Front), FR (Front-Right), BL (Back-Left), B (Back), BR (Back-Right).

Note: If you don’t need the multi-camera combiner (to save CPU resources), you can comment out the following line in launch/autoware_carla_interface.launch.xml:

<!-- Multi-camera combiner for RViz visualization -->
<!-- <node pkg="autoware_carla_interface" exec="multi_camera_combiner" output="screen"/> -->

Inner-workings / Algorithms

The InitializeInterface class is key to setting up both the CARLA world and the ego vehicle. It fetches configuration parameters through the autoware_carla_interface.launch.xml.

The main simulation loop runs within the carla_ros2_interface class. This loop ticks simulation time inside the CARLA simulator at fixed_delta_seconds time, where data is received and published as ROS 2 messages at frequencies defined in self.sensor_frequencies.

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Changelog for package autoware_carla_interface

0.47.0 (2025-08-11)

• style(pre-commit): autofix (#10982) Co-authored-by: pre-commit-ci[bot] <66853113+pre-commit-ci[bot]@users.noreply.github.com>
• Contributors: Ryohsuke Mitsudome

0.46.0 (2025-06-20)

0.45.0 (2025-05-22)

0.44.2 (2025-06-10)

0.44.1 (2025-05-01)

0.44.0 (2025-04-18)

0.43.0 (2025-03-21)

• Merge remote-tracking branch 'origin/main' into chore/bump-version-0.43
• chore: rename from [autoware.universe]{.title-ref} to [autoware_universe]{.title-ref} (#10306)
• Contributors: Hayato Mizushima, Yutaka Kondo

0.42.0 (2025-03-03)

0.41.2 (2025-02-19)

• chore: bump version to 0.41.1 (#10088)
• Contributors: Ryohsuke Mitsudome

0.41.1 (2025-02-10)

0.41.0 (2025-01-29)

• Merge remote-tracking branch 'origin/main' into tmp/bot/bump_version_base
• fix(autoware_carla_interface): fix lidar topic name (#9645)
• Contributors: Fumiya Watanabe, Maxime CLEMENT

0.40.0 (2024-12-12)

• Merge branch 'main' into release-0.40.0

• Revert "chore(package.xml): bump version to 0.39.0 (#9587)" This reverts commit c9f0f2688c57b0f657f5c1f28f036a970682e7f5.

• fix: fix ticket links in CHANGELOG.rst (#9588)

• chore(package.xml): bump version to 0.39.0 (#9587)

  • chore(package.xml): bump version to 0.39.0
  • fix: fix ticket links in CHANGELOG.rst

  * fix: remove unnecessary diff ---------Co-authored-by: Yutaka Kondo <<yutaka.kondo@youtalk.jp>>

• fix: fix ticket links in CHANGELOG.rst (#9588)

• fix(autoware_carla_interface): include "modules" submodule in release package and update setup.py (#9561)

• feat!: replace tier4_map_msgs with autoware_map_msgs for MapProjectorInfo (#9392)

• refactor: correct spelling (#9528)

• 0.39.0

• update changelog

• fix: fix ticket links to point to https://github.com/autowarefoundation/autoware_universe (#9304)

• fix: fix ticket links to point to https://github.com/autowarefoundation/autoware_universe (#9304)

• chore(package.xml): bump version to 0.38.0 (#9266) (#9284)

  • unify package.xml version to 0.37.0
  • remove system_monitor/CHANGELOG.rst
  • add changelog

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