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Vehicle types (config/vehicles/) — RFC #380 §1

A vehicle type is a data-only description of a class of airframe: which platform flies it, which URDF describes it, and which sensors it carries — with each sensor's real driver and sim representation declared in one entry, so a sim-generated wiring baseline diffs cleanly against a hardware bring-up. One directory per type:

config/vehicles/<name>/
└── vehicle.yaml        # platform, airframe, sensor suite, sim_asset

In-tree types ship with trunk (quad_default is the reference); other vehicles arrive as data modules (type: data in RFC #379's module mechanism).

Type vs. unit

Vehicle type Vehicle unit
What A class of airframe (quad_default) One physical serial number (SN-0042)
Content URDF, sensor suite, tuning Intrinsics/extrinsics calibration
Lives in config/vehicles/<name>/ — shared, committed config/local/calibration/<serial>/ — gitignored, per machine
Changes when The design changes The camera gets re-mounted / re-calibrated in the field

A fleet entry binds the two: vehicle: quad_default selects the type, unit: SN-0042 binds config/local/calibration/SN-0042/ (exported to the container as CALIBRATION_DIR). Recalibrating a unit never edits the shared package — see config/local/README.md.

Fields (vehicle.yaml)

  • platform: — the platform class (code layer). px4_multirotor is the only platform today; platform modules are RFC #380 Part 2 (future).
  • airframe.base_urdf: — pass-through form: the existing hand-built URDF, package-relative (what URDF_FILE carries today). RFC #380 §1's generated form (base xacro + mounts/ extrinsics → URDF) is future work; when it lands, base_xacro: replaces base_urdf: and monolithic URDFs retire.
  • sensors: — list of {type, id, frame, driver, sim} entries. id names the sensors/<id>/* topic namespace (interface conventions); driver is the hardware-side module, sim the Isaac/Pegasus subgraph that stands in for it. The fleet spawner reads this list (e.g. any lidar* entry enables the RTX lidar subgraph — the ENABLE_LIDAR env var equivalent).
  • sim_asset: — the sim asset the spawner instantiates.

Consumed by tools/fleet/resolve_fleet.py (URDF/vehicle exports per robot) and simulation/isaac-sim/launch_scripts/fleet_spawn.py (spawn + sensor toggles). See docs/development/fleets.md.