ArduPilot SITL (Software In The Loop) is a desktop build of ArduPilot that runs as a regular process, with the flight-controller code unchanged from what would run on a real Pixhawk. Everything in the simulation that involves the flight controller — arming, mode changes, EKF, motor mixing — runs here. SITL talks to Gazebo via the ardupilot_gazebo plugin and to ROS 2 via MAVROS.
Four pages here cover the install-and-bring-up arc. ArduPilot install (Aleks’s notes) is the hands-on walkthrough: clone the repo, build, run sim_vehicle.py, the MAVProxy commands you’ll use most. ardupilot_sitl_setup is the higher-level “what’s in the box” reference. Network routing covers the MAVLink → MAVROS → ROS 2 path. Parallel SITL instances is the dev-log on running two SITL stacks on one machine.
The single most-likely-to-bite issue when bringing up SITL is the heartbeat stall — see SITL “Waiting for heartbeat” for the canonical three-causes-of-one-symptom debug saga. Read it before you start, not after.
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