Johnliu/px4 cpu optimization

[JohnYanxinLiu]

What does this pull request do?

Sets the PX4 IMU INTEGRATION rate setting in simulation. This allows the user to specify the physics step frequency in isaac-sim. The PX4 physics step frequency is now set to 100 Hz by default to drastically speed up Isaac-sim performance. This pull request also freezes the DDS router at v3.4.0 to remain compatible with isaac-sim.

Which issue number does this address?

Add videos and images if possible.

How did you implement it?

Currently, Dockerfile.isaac-ros patches the PX4 repository with a 1-line change in the simulation startup script to read from an environment variable PX4_IMU_INTEG_RATE after cloning to bake the change into the image. PegasusSimulator was adjusted to set the environment variable before launching PX4 in a subprocess.

Testing

How do you run the tests?
Typical test of airstack up, then arming + takeoff, and exploring.
Also, able to run the benchmark suite in PegasusSimulator now.
docker exec isaac-sim bash -c \ "/isaac-sim/python.sh /isaac-sim/AirStack/simulation/isaac-sim/extensions/PegasusSimulator/benchmarking/run_all.py"

What do the tests do?
the benchmarking script will run a benchmark of tests on the system and give an insight to how close to real time one can get on their system.

What are the expected results of the tests?
The lower the physics step frequency specified, the closer to real time you should be able to get. However, from a quick search with CLAUDE, the PX4 EKF works with windows of 10ms, of which 100Hz will result in that minimum 10ms period window. Setting it lower may lead to unintended effects.

Did you update the docs (and where)?

(FYI Docs are updated via mkdocs.yml and markdown files under docs/. It should render at localhost:8000 when you run docker compose up docs.)

[github-actions]

Test Metrics — a427354c2bbad7108e8f4a7d78c1beb74de9a110

test_build_docker

Pass rates

Test	Pass	Fail	Skip	Rate (baseline → current)
test_build_gcs	0 → 1	0 → 0	0 → 0	— → 100%
test_build_isaac_sim	0 → 1	0 → 0	0 → 0	— → 100%
test_build_ms_airsim	0 → 1	0 → 0	0 → 0	— → 100%
test_build_robot_desktop	0 → 1	0 → 0	0 → 0	— → 100%

Metrics

Test	Metric	Baseline	Current	Change
test_build_robot_desktop	duration_s	—	791.8s	new
test_build_gcs	duration_s	—	310.7s	new
test_build_isaac_sim	duration_s	—	715.2s	new
test_build_ms_airsim	duration_s	—	226.5s	new

test_build_packages

Pass rates

Test	Pass	Fail	Skip	Rate (baseline → current)
test_colcon_build_gcs	0 → 0	0 → 1	0 → 0	— → 0%
test_colcon_build_ms_airsim	0 → 1	0 → 0	0 → 0	— → 100%
test_colcon_build_robot	0 → 0	0 → 1	0 → 0	— → 0%

Metrics

Test	Metric	Baseline	Current	Change
test_colcon_build_robot	duration_s	—	27.64s	new
test_colcon_build_gcs	duration_s	—	25.73s	new
test_colcon_build_ms_airsim	duration_s	—	12.95s	new

docker

Metrics

Test	Metric	Baseline	Current	Change
docker.gcs	image_size_mb	—	2024MB	new
docker.isaac-sim	image_size_mb	—	1.253e+04MB	new
docker.ms-airsim	image_size_mb	—	4008MB	new

[github-actions]

Test Metrics — 6f3fc385d7342dec04f9c72b3d233f10f8c42714

test_build_docker

Pass rates

Test	Pass	Fail	Skip	Rate (baseline → current)
test_build_gcs	0 → 1	0 → 0	0 → 0	— → 100%
test_build_isaac_sim	0 → 1	0 → 0	0 → 0	— → 100%
test_build_ms_airsim	0 → 1	0 → 0	0 → 0	— → 100%
test_build_robot_desktop	0 → 1	0 → 0	0 → 0	— → 100%

Metrics

Test	Metric	Baseline	Current	Change
test_build_robot_desktop	duration_s	—	763.3s	new
test_build_gcs	duration_s	—	37.86s	new
test_build_isaac_sim	duration_s	—	169.2s	new
test_build_ms_airsim	duration_s	—	52.39s	new

test_build_packages

Pass rates

Test	Pass	Fail	Skip	Rate (baseline → current)
test_colcon_build_gcs	0 → 0	0 → 1	0 → 0	— → 0%
test_colcon_build_ms_airsim	0 → 1	0 → 0	0 → 0	— → 100%
test_colcon_build_robot	0 → 0	0 → 1	0 → 0	— → 0%

Metrics

Test	Metric	Baseline	Current	Change
test_colcon_build_robot	duration_s	—	163.7s	new
test_colcon_build_gcs	duration_s	—	32.34s	new
test_colcon_build_ms_airsim	duration_s	—	12.95s	new

docker

Metrics

Test	Metric	Baseline	Current	Change
docker.gcs	image_size_mb	—	2024MB	new
docker.isaac-sim	image_size_mb	—	1.253e+04MB	new
docker.ms-airsim	image_size_mb	—	4008MB	new

[github-actions]

Test Metrics — bc8032416cc525b443a16178b1b52c042ebc5cfb

test_build_docker

Pass rates

Test	Pass	Fail	Skip	Rate (baseline → current)
test_build_gcs	0 → 1	0 → 0	0 → 0	— → 100%
test_build_isaac_sim	0 → 1	0 → 0	0 → 0	— → 100%
test_build_ms_airsim	0 → 1	0 → 0	0 → 0	— → 100%
test_build_robot_desktop	0 → 1	0 → 0	0 → 0	— → 100%

Metrics

Test	Metric	Baseline	Current	Change
test_build_robot_desktop	duration_s	—	568s	new
test_build_gcs	duration_s	—	42.73s	new
test_build_isaac_sim	duration_s	—	180.3s	new
test_build_ms_airsim	duration_s	—	33.37s	new

test_build_packages

Pass rates

Test	Pass	Fail	Skip	Rate (baseline → current)
test_colcon_build_gcs	0 → 0	0 → 1	0 → 0	— → 0%
test_colcon_build_ms_airsim	0 → 1	0 → 0	0 → 0	— → 100%
test_colcon_build_robot	0 → 0	0 → 1	0 → 0	— → 0%

Metrics

Test	Metric	Baseline	Current	Change
test_colcon_build_robot	duration_s	—	124.7s	new
test_colcon_build_gcs	duration_s	—	26.52s	new
test_colcon_build_ms_airsim	duration_s	—	12.79s	new

docker

Metrics

Test	Metric	Baseline	Current	Change
docker.gcs	image_size_mb	—	2024MB	new
docker.isaac-sim	image_size_mb	—	1.253e+04MB	new
docker.ms-airsim	image_size_mb	—	4008MB	new

[github-actions]

Test Metrics — 622270d1e90c1bb914c4f04d004374cf618e7f25