Neurosim

Blazing fast multirotor simulator with event camera support. Pythonic and real-time.

Richeek Das, Pratik Chaudhari

GRASP Laboratory, University of Pennsylvania

[📜 Paper] • [📖 BibTeX]

Quick Start: If you only need a fast CUDA event simulator, we've made it standalone. Learn how to use our optimized event simulator at grasp-lyrl/neurosim_cu_esim.

📚 Detailed documentation coming soon!

📋 Table of Contents

• Installation
  • Option 1: Docker (Recommended)
  • Option 2: Conda
• Usage
• Troubleshooting

---

Installation

Option 1: Docker (Recommended)

Docker provides a consistent environment with all dependencies pre-configured, including CUDA, ROS2 Humble, and ZMQ libraries.

Prerequisites

• Docker with NVIDIA GPU support (nvidia-docker)
• NVIDIA drivers installed on host (nvcc 12.9+)

Build the Docker Image (Dockerhub coming soon!)

# Clone the repository
git clone https://github.com/grasp-lyrl/neurosim.git
cd neurosim

# Build the Docker image (takes ~15-20 minutes)
bash docker/build.sh

Run the Container

# Launch the container with GPU and display support
bash docker/run.sh

This will:

• Mount the current directory to /home/${USER}/neurosim inside the container
• Enable GPU access with all CUDA capabilities
• Forward X11 display for GUI applications
• Set up shared networking and IPC

Inside the Container

# Navigate to the workspace
cd neurosim

# Create and activate conda environment
conda create -n neurosim python=3.10 cmake=3.14.0 pip==25.1.1 -y
conda activate neurosim

# Install neurosim
pip install -e . -v

# Download example scenes
python -m habitat_sim.utils.datasets_download --uids habitat_test_scenes --data-path data/

# Run the simulator
python test_sim.py --settings configs/skokloster-castle-settings.yaml --display --world_rate 750

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Option 2: Conda

System Requirements

• OS: Ubuntu 22.04/24.04 (tested)
• Compiler: GCC 11.4.0+
• CMake: 3.14.0+
• CUDA: 12.2 / 12.4 / 12.6 / 12.9 / 13.0 (tested)
• Python: 3.10

Install System Dependencies

sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install -y --no-install-recommends \
    libjpeg-dev libglm-dev libgl1-mesa-glx libegl1-mesa-dev \
    mesa-utils xorg-dev freeglut3-dev

Install Neurosim

# Create conda environment
conda create -n neurosim python=3.10 cmake=3.14.0 pip==25.1.1 -y
conda activate neurosim

# Install neurosim in editable mode
pip install -e . -v

---

Usage

Download Example Data

python -m habitat_sim.utils.datasets_download --uids habitat_test_scenes --data-path data/

Run the Simulator

python test_sim.py --settings configs/skokloster-castle-settings.yaml --display --world_rate 750

Compilation Issues

• If compilation crashes due to high memory usage or CPU load, manually set self.parallel=4 inside setup.py to limit parallel jobs.

• pip==25.3 breaks installation due to changes in the build isolation process. Use pip==25.1.1 as specified.

Citation

If you use this code in your research, please cite:

@misc{das2026neurosim,
      title={Neurosim: A Fast Simulator for Neuromorphic Robot Perception}, 
      author={Richeek Das and Pratik Chaudhari},
      year={2026},
      eprint={2602.15018},
      archivePrefix={arXiv},
      primaryClass={cs.RO},
      url={https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.15018}, 
}

Issues

Please report any bugs or feature requests on GitHub issues. Pull requests are very welcome!

License

Apache 2.0 License - see the LICENSE file for details.

Acknowledgements

This project is enabled by the following amazing open-source projects:

• Habitat-Sim
• ZeroMQ
• RotorPy

Picture credits: @ongdexter, Gemini 3