carla README

The project's README from github.com/carla-simulator/carla. As one markdown file: README.md.

CARLA Simulator

Documentation

carla.org download documentation forum discord

CARLA is an open-source simulator for autonomous driving research. CARLA has been developed from the ground up to support development, training, and validation of autonomous driving systems. In addition to open-source code and protocols, CARLA provides open digital assets (urban layouts, buildings, vehicles) that were created for this purpose and can be used freely. The simulation platform supports flexible specification of sensor suites and environmental conditions.

CARLA Video

[!NOTE] This is the development branch ue5-dev for the Unreal Engine 5.5 version of CARLA. This branch exists in parallel with the Unreal Engine 4.26 version of CARLA, in the ue4-dev branch. Please be sure that this version of CARLA is suitable for your needs as there are significant differences between the UE 5.5 and UE 4.26 versions of CARLA.

[!NOTE] You must use either Ubuntu 22.04 or 24.04, or Windows 11. The Unreal Engine 5.5 version of CARLA will not work on Ubuntu 20.04 or Windows 10 or lower.

Documentation

The CARLA documentation is hosted on ReadTheDocs. Please see the following key links:

CARLA Ecosystem

Repositories associated with the CARLA simulation platform:

Like what you see? Star us on GitHub to support the project!

Paper

If you use CARLA, please cite our CoRL’17 paper.

CARLA: An Open Urban Driving Simulator
Alexey Dosovitskiy, German Ros, Felipe Codevilla, Antonio Lopez, Vladlen Koltun; PMLR 78:1-16 [PDF] [talk]

@inproceedings{Dosovitskiy17,
  title = {{CARLA}: {An} Open Urban Driving Simulator},
  author = {Alexey Dosovitskiy and German Ros and Felipe Codevilla and Antonio Lopez and Vladlen Koltun},
  booktitle = {Proceedings of the 1st Annual Conference on Robot Learning},
  pages = {1--16},
  year = {2017}
}

Building CARLA with Unreal Engine 5.5

Clone this repository locally from GitHub, specifying the ue5-dev branch:

git clone -b ue5-dev https://github.com/carla-simulator/carla.git CarlaUE5

In order to build CARLA, you need access to the CARLA fork of Unreal Engine 5.5. In order to access this repository, you must first link your GitHub account to Epic Games by following this guide. You then also need to use your git credentials to authorise the download of the Unreal Engine 5.5 repository.

Building in Linux:

Run the setup script from a terminal open in the CARLA root directory:

cd CarlaUE5
./CarlaSetup.sh --interactive

The setup script will prompt you for your sudo password, in order to install the prerequisites. It will then prompt you for your GitHub credentials in order to authorise the download of the Unreal Engine repository.

The setup script will install by default Python 3 using apt. If you want to target an existing Python installation, you should use the --python-root=PATH_TO_PYTHON argument with the relevant Python installation path. You can use whereis python3 in your chosen environment and strip the /python3 suffix from the path.

Building in Linux unattended:

If you want to run the setup script unattended, your git credentials need to be stored in an environment variable. Add your github credentials to your .bashrc file:

export GIT_LOCAL_CREDENTIALS=username@github_token

Then run the setup script using the following command:

cd CarlaUE5
sudo -E ./CarlaSetup.sh

This will download and install Unreal Engine 5.5, install the prerequisites and build CARLA. It may take some time to complete and use a significant amount of disk space.

If you prefer to add the git credentials in the terminal, use the following command:

cd CarlaUE5
sudo -E env GIT_LOCAL_CREDENTIALS=github_username@github_token ./CarlaSetup.sh

Building in Windows:

To build in Windows, run the batch script:

cd CarlaUE5
CarlaSetup.bat

Unattended mode is currently unavailable in Windows, you will need to enter GitHub credentials or administrator privileges when prompted.

Rebuilding CARLA

Once the setup is complete, you can execute subsequent builds with the following commands in a terminal open in the CARLA root directory. In Linux, run these commands in a standard terminal. In Windows, open the x64 Native Tools Command Prompt for Visual Studio 2022.

Configure:

Linux:

cmake -G Ninja -S . -B Build --toolchain=$PWD/CMake/Toolchain.cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release -DENABLE_ROS2=ON

Windows:

cmake -G Ninja -S . -B Build --toolchain=$PWD/CMake/Toolchain.cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Release

[!NOTE] If you intend to target a specific Python installation, you should add both these arguments to the above cmake command: -DPython_ROOT_DIR=PATH and -DPython3_ROOT_DIR=PATH.

Build:

Linux and Windows:

cmake --build Build

Build and install the Python API:

Linux and Windows:

cmake --build Build --target carla-python-api-install

Launch the editor:

cmake --build Build --target launch

For more instructions on building CARLA UE5, please consult the build documentation for Linux or Windows.

Contributing

Please take a look at our Contribution guidelines.

Licenses

CARLA licenses

CARLA specific code is distributed under the MIT License.

CARLA specific assets are distributed under the CC-BY License.

CARLA Dependency and Integration licenses

Unreal Engine 5 follows its own license terms.

CARLA uses some dependencies related to 3rd party integrations:

CARLA uses the Autodesk FBX SDK for converting FBX to OBJ in the import process of maps. This step is optional, and the SDK is located here

This software contains Autodesk® FBX® code developed by Autodesk, Inc. Copyright 2020 Autodesk, Inc. All rights, reserved. Such code is provided "as is" and Autodesk, Inc. disclaims any and all warranties, whether express or implied, including without limitation the implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose or non-infringement of third party rights. In no event shall Autodesk, Inc. be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, special, exemplary, or consequential damages (including, but not limited to, procurement of substitute goods or services; loss of use, data, or profits; or business interruption) however caused and on any theory of liability, whether in contract, strict liability, or tort (including negligence or otherwise) arising in any way out of such code."

carla (carla-simulator/carla)

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14.5K ·GitHub
Carla
What is this?CARLA is an open-source simulator for autonomous driving research, built from the ground up to support development, training, and validation of self-driving systems, with open urban layouts, buildings, and vehicle assets.
Is this a standalone simulator or a library I import?It is a standalone 3D simulator built on Unreal Engine, controlled through a Python API that lets you spawn vehicles, sensors, and traffic programmatically.
How do I build and run CARLA?Clone the repo on the 'ue5-dev' branch and run the provided setup script (setup.sh on Linux, a batch script on Windows); it installs prerequisites, downloads the CARLA fork of Unreal Engine 5.5, then you configure with cmake, build, and build the Python API before launching the editor.
Do I need an Epic Games account to build this?Yes — you must link your GitHub account to Epic Games to get access to the CARLA fork of Unreal Engine 5.5, plus Python 3 and, on Windows, Visual Studio 2022 build tools.
What hardware and OS does CARLA actually require?The recommended setup is an Intel i7/i9 (9th-11th gen) or AMD Ryzen 7/9 with 32GB+ RAM and an RTX 3070 or better with 16GB+ VRAM, and it only runs on Ubuntu 22.04/24.04 or Windows 11 — Ubuntu 20.04 and Windows 10 are explicitly unsupported.
Does CARLA need a serious GPU?Yes, the recommended setup specifies an NVIDIA RTX 3070/3080/3090, RTX 4090 or RTX 5090 with 16GB or more of VRAM.
What else is in the CARLA Ecosystem?Associated repos include the Autonomous Driving Leaderboard for validating AD stacks, ScenarioRunner for scripting traffic scenarios, Driving-benchmarks, a Conditional Imitation Learning trainer, an AutoWare bridge, and a RoadRunner/Map Editor toolchain for building maps.
Can CARLA talk to ROS?Yes, the separate ROS-bridge repository connects CARLA 0.9.X to ROS for integrating existing robotics software stacks.
Should I cite anything if I use CARLA in research?Yes, the project asks you to cite its CoRL'17 paper, 'CARLA: An Open Urban Driving Simulator' by Dosovitskiy et al.
Is there an older, easier-to-build version of CARLA?Yes, this ue5-dev branch is the Unreal Engine 5.5 rewrite; a parallel ue4-dev branch exists for the older Unreal Engine 4.26 version, which has different build requirements.
What are similar projects?AirSim, apollo, Qwen-Drive-1.0, openpilot, bullet3, autoware, GR00T-WholeBodyControl, genesis-world
Which topics is it in?self-driving-car, autonomous-driving, imitation-learning, ros, simulator, autonomous-vehicles, unreal-engine, deep-reinforcement-learning, robotics, simulation, reinforcement-learning, 3d
Creator
carla-simulator
Size
2.5 GB
Stars
14.5K
Updated
CommitOct 16Release0.9.16Sep 16
Age
8y
Commits · 90 Days