px4io/px4-sitl-ros2 repository overview

⁠PX4 SITL with ROS 2 and SIH

A ready-to-use environment for developing ROS 2 applications with PX4 Autopilot. Run packaged PX4 firmware with its built-in SIH physics simulator, without installing Gazebo or compiling PX4.

Use this image for headless simulation, ROS 2 application development, and automated application testing against the bundled firmware.

⁠Included

• Ubuntu 24.04 and ROS 2 Jazzy.
• PX4 SITL with SIH simulation; the default vehicle is a quadrotor.
• Micro XRCE-DDS Agent v2.4.3 for communication between PX4 and ROS 2.
• Prebuilt px4_msgs matching the packaged PX4 firmware.
• The PX4 ROS 2 Interface Library⁠, including examples and development tools.

Images are available for Linux amd64 and arm64.

⁠Quick start

Run these commands in separate host terminals.

Terminal 1: start the container and DDS Agent.

docker run --rm -it --name px4-ros2 \
  px4io/px4-sitl-ros2:latest MicroXRCEAgent udp4 -p 8888

Terminal 2: start PX4 with SIH.

docker exec -it px4-ros2 /usr/local/bin/ros2-entrypoint.sh px4

Terminal 3: list ROS 2 topics.

docker exec -it px4-ros2 /usr/local/bin/ros2-entrypoint.sh ros2 topic list

PX4, the Agent, and ROS 2 communicate inside the same container; this example does not require host networking. Connecting ROS nodes outside the container requires additional DDS networking configuration.

Without an explicit command, the image opens Bash with ROS 2 and the workspace at /opt/px4_ros2 already sourced. PX4 and the Agent do not start automatically.

For reproducible environments, pin an image digest rather than relying on the moving latest tag. If you modify PX4 firmware or its message definitions, rebuild the ROS workspace to match; do not assume the bundled messages are compatible.

⁠Related images and documentation

• PX4 SITL with Gazebo and ROS 2⁠ adds Gazebo Harmonic for world and sensor simulation.
• ghcr.io/px4/px4-dev-ros2:main-jazzy provides the standalone source-build toolchain used by PX4 ROS integration CI, without bundled firmware or a prebuilt ROS workspace.
• PX4 prebuilt simulation packages⁠
• PX4 ROS 2 guide⁠
• Container source⁠