VMware Installation Guide

Depending on your OS, follow the guide below to install VMware

Windows — VMware Workstation Pro

• Download VMWare Workstation Pro 17 from https://support.broadcom.com/group/ecx/productdownloads?subfamily=VMware+Workstation+Pro
• Open the downloaded .exe file and install VMware Workstation 17 following the installation prompts.
• The first time you open VMware, choose “Use VMware Workstation 17 for free for non-commercial user”

MacOS — VMware Fusion Pro

• Navigate to VMware Fusion page:

  • https://support.broadcom.com/group/ecx/productdownloads?subfamily=VMware+Fusion

• If you need to create an account, follow:

  • Click on “Create an Account”:

  

  • Enter login information. You can use the address for Durand Building and the Aero/Astro department phone number:

    

• Navigate to VMware page again

  • https://customerconnect.vmware.com/en/evalcenter?p=fusion-player-personal-13

• This time, click on “I Have an Account” and log in

• Navigate to the License & Download tab, and click “Manually Download”. Take note of the license key, as this will be used later in the setup.

  

• Open the downloaded .dmg file and install VMware Fusion (enter the License key above when prompted)

VMware Image Setup

1. Download our pre-built image from one of the following links:

   1. Windows and Intel Mac: amd64 image.

2. Unzip the downloaded image and you’ll find 4 files in the extracted folder:

   

   File names might differ between amd64 and arm64 images, but the file extensions should be the same

3. Import the .ovf file. VMware on Mac and Windows are different, pick one of the following guide depending on your OS

   1. MacOS: on the menu bar at the top, click File → Import, and select the .ovf file.
   2. Windows: click Open in the main menu, and select the .ovf file.

4. (Optional) Configure VM settings. You can customize how many CPU cores and memory you want to allocate for the VM. The default is 4 CPU cores with 8GB RAM. We do not recommend going below this default setting.

5. Launch the VM and two terminals:

   1. First run

      ros2 launch asl_tb3_sim root.launch.py
      

   2. In the other terminal, run

      ros2 topic list
      

      If you see the following topics, then your environment is configured correctly.

      /clock
      /cmd_vel
      /imu
      /joint_states
      /map
      /map_metadata
      /odom
      /parameter_events
      /pose
      /robot_description
      /rosout
      /scan
      /sim/pose
      /slam_toolbox/feedback
      /slam_toolbox/graph_visualization
      /slam_toolbox/scan_visualization
      /slam_toolbox/update
      /tf
      /tf_static