5 ms·

Peng – A minimal Rust-based quadrotor simulation pipeline

130 points by Tycho87 2y ago

high_priest 2y ago
All this in one main.rs! Holy moly!
- stavros 2y ago
  All this in 1200 lines! How?
  - dragonelite 2y ago
    It helps that they are using an external visualisation tool.
    - ustad 2y ago
      which one?
      - filmor 2y ago
        https://rerun.io/ https://rerun.io/ Quite obvious, if you scroll to the "Getting Started" section.
dj_mc_merlin 2y ago
> Why call it Peng? > Peng (traditional Chinese: 鵬; simplified Chinese: 鹏; pinyin: péng; Wade–Giles: p'eng) or Dapeng (大鵬) is a giant bird that transforms from a Kun (鯤; 鲲; kūn; k'un) giant fish in Chinese mythology. Just a funny coincidence, in British slang, a bird is a woman, and being peng means being attractive..
- soylentcola 2y ago
  I'd just assumed that "Ni" and "Neee-wom" were already taken.
- unclad5968 2y ago
  I was curious. Seems like peng the British slang has Jamaican origins, maybe. https://english.stackexchange.com/a/66906 https://english.stackexchange.com/a/66906
- nescioquid 2y ago
  It's also the sound a gun makes when it's fired (in German). There's a pipeline-related joke in there somewhere.
- faitswulff 2y ago
  Oh huh, my brain went to peng 碰 for 碰到 first, meaning "to collide."
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
bbno4 2y ago
I was hoping it would be called "Peng" because the simulation is attractive
yangrobotics 2y ago
I am the author of this toy project. My personal website is [here]((https://yangrobotics.com https://yangrobotics.com). Thank you all for your interest! This project began as an effort to mentor a talented high school student in learning Rust and robotics. During the process, I realized that there was a lack of educational materials available online. In response, I set out to create a minimal example of quadrotor control and planning in Rust. I was inspired by [llm.c](https://github.com/karpathy/llm.c https://github.com/karpathy/llm.c), which teaches complex topics with minimal code. My goal was to provide a similar experience, introducing the magic behind quadrotor autonomy with as little code as possible. With the initial framework I developed, I am thrilled to see that my mentee is now able to work independently, experimenting with his own ideas in Rust! I believe this codebase will be valuable for anyone who wants to: a. Learn the principles behind quadrotor autonomy. Code robotics in Rust. b. Explore the challenges of using Rust before incorporating it into their projects. Throughout the development of this project, I have strived to work entirely within the Rust ecosystem. I am now convinced that Rust is ready for serious robotics development. Here are some tools I've been using: 1. [zed.dev](https://yangrobotics.com https://yangrobotics.com) for code editing. 2. [Rerun](rerun.io) for visualization. 3. [tokei](https://github.com/XAMPPRocky/tokei https://github.com/XAMPPRocky/tokei) for code line statistics. 4. [nalgebra](https://nalgebra.org https://nalgebra.org) for matrix operations. There are still a few things I'm searching for, such as a robust optimization library. Currently, I'm experimenting with [OpEn](https://alphaville.github.io/optimization-engine https://alphaville.github.io/optimization-engine) for nonlinear model predictive control, but I hope to find something akin to [acados](https://github.com/acados https://github.com/acados) in Rust. Additionally, while nalgebra is solid, I believe it still doesn't outperform [Eigen](https://eigen.tuxfamily.org https://eigen.tuxfamily.org) in terms of performance, though Rust's language features might limit the possibility of implementing something like Eigen. I'm open to suggestions and feedback! For instance, I’m still debating whether to modularize the pipeline and add async features, or whether to keep things simpler to avoid overwhelming beginner learners. Current code statistics: Rust: 1263 Markdown: 305 Comments: 19 Blanks: 44 PS: When naming the project "Peng," I had no idea that "peng" also means attractive! Well, I hope you find the project attractive too.
- simojo 2y ago
kosvke 2y ago
This is awesome, big fan of seeing more rust robotics happen and challenging the status quo of C/C++/Python in robotics
yangrobotics 2y ago
Also want to recommend https://github.com/peterkrull/quad https://github.com/peterkrull/quad for quadrotor firmware and low-level implementation!

130 points by Tycho87 2y ago

high_priest 2y ago

All this in one main.rs! Holy moly!

stavros 2y ago
All this in 1200 lines! How?
- dragonelite 2y ago
  It helps that they are using an external visualisation tool.
  - ustad 2y ago
    which one?
    - filmor 2y ago
      https://rerun.io/ https://rerun.io/ Quite obvious, if you scroll to the "Getting Started" section.

dj_mc_merlin 2y ago

> Why call it Peng? > Peng (traditional Chinese: 鵬; simplified Chinese: 鹏; pinyin: péng; Wade–Giles: p'eng) or Dapeng (大鵬) is a giant bird that transforms from a Kun (鯤; 鲲; kūn; k'un) giant fish in Chinese mythology. Just a funny coincidence, in British slang, a bird is a woman, and being peng means being attractive..

soylentcola 2y ago
I'd just assumed that "Ni" and "Neee-wom" were already taken.
unclad5968 2y ago
I was curious. Seems like peng the British slang has Jamaican origins, maybe. https://english.stackexchange.com/a/66906 https://english.stackexchange.com/a/66906
nescioquid 2y ago
It's also the sound a gun makes when it's fired (in German). There's a pipeline-related joke in there somewhere.
faitswulff 2y ago
Oh huh, my brain went to peng 碰 for 碰到 first, meaning "to collide."
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

bbno4 2y ago

I was hoping it would be called "Peng" because the simulation is attractive

yangrobotics 2y ago

I am the author of this toy project. My personal website is [here]((https://yangrobotics.com https://yangrobotics.com). Thank you all for your interest! This project began as an effort to mentor a talented high school student in learning Rust and robotics. During the process, I realized that there was a lack of educational materials available online. In response, I set out to create a minimal example of quadrotor control and planning in Rust. I was inspired by [llm.c](https://github.com/karpathy/llm.c https://github.com/karpathy/llm.c), which teaches complex topics with minimal code. My goal was to provide a similar experience, introducing the magic behind quadrotor autonomy with as little code as possible. With the initial framework I developed, I am thrilled to see that my mentee is now able to work independently, experimenting with his own ideas in Rust! I believe this codebase will be valuable for anyone who wants to: a. Learn the principles behind quadrotor autonomy. Code robotics in Rust. b. Explore the challenges of using Rust before incorporating it into their projects. Throughout the development of this project, I have strived to work entirely within the Rust ecosystem. I am now convinced that Rust is ready for serious robotics development. Here are some tools I've been using: 1. [zed.dev](https://yangrobotics.com https://yangrobotics.com) for code editing. 2. [Rerun](rerun.io) for visualization. 3. [tokei](https://github.com/XAMPPRocky/tokei https://github.com/XAMPPRocky/tokei) for code line statistics. 4. [nalgebra](https://nalgebra.org https://nalgebra.org) for matrix operations. There are still a few things I'm searching for, such as a robust optimization library. Currently, I'm experimenting with [OpEn](https://alphaville.github.io/optimization-engine https://alphaville.github.io/optimization-engine) for nonlinear model predictive control, but I hope to find something akin to [acados](https://github.com/acados https://github.com/acados) in Rust. Additionally, while nalgebra is solid, I believe it still doesn't outperform [Eigen](https://eigen.tuxfamily.org https://eigen.tuxfamily.org) in terms of performance, though Rust's language features might limit the possibility of implementing something like Eigen. I'm open to suggestions and feedback! For instance, I’m still debating whether to modularize the pipeline and add async features, or whether to keep things simpler to avoid overwhelming beginner learners. Current code statistics: Rust: 1263 Markdown: 305 Comments: 19 Blanks: 44 PS: When naming the project "Peng," I had no idea that "peng" also means attractive! Well, I hope you find the project attractive too.

simojo 2y ago

kosvke 2y ago

This is awesome, big fan of seeing more rust robotics happen and challenging the status quo of C/C++/Python in robotics

yangrobotics 2y ago

Also want to recommend https://github.com/peterkrull/quad https://github.com/peterkrull/quad for quadrotor firmware and low-level implementation!