Robotics simulator

A robotics simulator is used to create embedded applications for a robot without depending physically on the actual machine, thus saving cost and time. In some case, these applications can be transferred on the real robot (or rebuilt) without modifications. The term robotics simulator can refer to several different robotics simulation applications. For example, in mobile robotics applications, behavior-based robotics simulators allow users to create simple worlds of rigid objects and light sources and to program robots to interact with these worlds. Behavior-based simulation allows for actions that are more biological in nature when compared to simulators that are more binary, or computational. In addition, behavior-based simulators may "learn" from mistakes and are capable of demonstrating the anthropomorphic quality of tenacity.

Robologix robotics simulator.

One of the most popular applications for robotics simulators is for 3D modeling and rendering of a robot and its environment. This type of robotics software has a simulator that is a virtual robot, which is capable of emulating the motion of an actual robot in a real work envelope. Some robotics simulators, such as Robologix use a physics engine for more realistic motion generation of the robot. The use of a robotics simulator for development of a robotics control program is highly recommended regardless of whether an actual robot is available or not. The simulator allows for robotics programs to be conveniently written and debugged off-line with the final version of the program tested on an actual robot. Of course, this primarily holds for industrial robotic applications only, since the success of off-line programming depends on how similar the real environment of the robot to the simulated environment. Sensor-based robot actions are much more difficult to simulate and/or to program off-line, since the robot motion depends on the instantaneous sensor readings in the real world.

Features

Modern simulators tend to provide the following features:

• Fast robot prototyping
  • Using the own simulator as creation tool (Virtual Robot Experimentation Platform, Webots, R-Station, Marilou).
  • Using external tools.
• Physics engines for realistic movements. Most simulators use ODE (Gazebo, LpzRobots, Marilou, Webots) or PhysX (Microsoft Robotics Studio).
• Realistic 3d rendering. Standard 3d modeling tools or third party tools can be used to build the environments.
• Dynamic robot bodies with scripting. C, C++, Perl, Python, Java, URBI, MATLAB languages used by Webots, Python used by Gazebo.

Simulators

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Mobile Base Simulation

Robotic Arm Simulation

• RoKiSim: A free educational software for the 3D simulation of six-axis PUMA-type serial robots.

Mobile Manipulator Simulation

Open source simulators

• Gazebo: Probably the most complete open source simulator to this writing (2008-01-31). Unfortunately it is notorious for being extremely difficult to install. It is Part of the Player project.
• The Blender for Robotics and MORSE projects are providing simulation tools based on the Blender 3D modeling software.
• Stage: 2.5D simulator often used with Player to form the Player/Stage system. Part of the Player Project
• breve 3d simulator using Python
• LpzRobots: Another rich simulator with good material support.
• OpenSim Simulator for articulated and wheeled robots with a wide range of characteristics. Further development stopped in the year 2006.
• Simbad 3d Robot Simulator Java based simulator
• Khepera Simulator Apparently before Webots became commercial it was open source and called Khepera Simulator
• Moby is a robust robotic dynamics simulator
• UCHILSIM: A physics based simulator for AIBO Robots introduced in RoboCup 2004.
• SimRobot: A robot simulator software package developed at the Universität Bremen and the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence.
• EZPhysics: Combination of Ogre3D and ODE physics, GUI exposes all of ODE's objects data, network closed loop remote control optionally via Matlab/Simulink.
• OpenHRP3: (Open Architecture Human-centered Robotics Platform version 3) is an integrated software platform for robot simulations and software developments.

Research simulators

• UWA Robot Simulators

Commercial simulators

• Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio: As of 2008 R3, Robotics Developer Studio is a free download.
• Virtual Robot Experimentation Platform
• anyKode Marilou
• Webots A generic simulator that can be programmed in C/C++, Java, Python, URBI and MATLAB
• RoboLogix
• Visual Components
• Cogmation robotSim
• SimplyCube
• Actin Simulation toolkit for Robotics
• Workspace 5 Robot and Automation Simulation
• WorkCellSimulator WorkCellSimulator
• COSIMIR

External links

Robotics portal

• Robot Simulation Tutorial

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