INTEGRATION OF THE SIMULATION ENVIRONMENT FOR AUTONOMOUS ROBOTS WITH ROBOTICS MIDDLEWARE

Robotic simulators have long been used to test code and designs before any actual hardware is tested to ensure safety and efficiency. Many current robotics simulators are either closed source (calling into question the fidelity of their simulations) or are very complicated to install and use. There is a need for software that provides good quality simulation as well as being easy to use. Another issue arises when moving code from the simulator to actual hardware. In many cases, the code must be changed drastically to accommodate the final hardware on the robot, which can possibly invalidate aspects of the simulation. This defense describes methods and techniques for developing high fidelity graphical and physical simulation of autonomous robotic vehicles that is simple to use as well as having minimal distinction between simulated hardware, and actual hardware. These techniques and methods were proven by the development of the Simulation Environment for Autonomous Robots (SEAR) described here. SEAR is a 3-dimensional open source robotics simulator written by Adam Harris in Java that provides high fidelity graphical and physical simulations of user-designed vehicles running user-defined code in user-designed virtual terrain. Multiple simulated sensors are available and include a GPS, triple axis accelerometer, triple axis gyroscope, a compass with declination calculation, LIDAR, and a class of distance sensors that includes RADAR, SONAR, Ultrasonic and infrared. Several of these sensors have been validated against real-world sensors and other simulation software

Microsoft robotics soccer challenge : movement optimization of a quadruped robot

Estágio realizado na Universidade de Aveiro e orientado pelo Prof. Doutor Nuno LauTese de mestrado integrado. Engenharia Electrotécnica e de Computadores. Faculdade de Engenharia. Universidade do Porto. 200

Systematic literature review of realistic simulators applied in educational robotics context

This paper presents a systematic literature review (SLR) about realistic simulators that can be applied in an educational robotics context. These simulators must include the simulation of actuators and sensors, the ability to simulate robots and their environment. During this systematic review of the literature, 559 articles were extracted from six different databases using the Population, Intervention, Comparison, Outcomes, Context (PICOC) method. After the selection process, 50 selected articles were included in this review. Several simulators were found and their features were also analyzed. As a result of this process, four realistic simulators were applied in the review’s referred context for two main reasons. The first reason is that these simulators have high fidelity in the robots’ visual modeling due to the 3D rendering engines and the second reason is because they apply physics engines, allowing the robot’s interaction with the environment.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio

Simulating autonomous robot teams with Microsoft robotics studio

This paper presents an application of Microsoft Robotics Studio (MSRS) in which a team of six four wheel drive, ground based robots explore and map simulated terrain. The user has the ability to modify the terrain and assign destination objectives to the team while the simulation is running. The terrain is initially generated using a gray scale image, in which the intensity of each pixel in the image gives an altitude datum. The robots start with no knowledge of their surroundings, and map the terrain as they attempt to reach user-defined target objectives. The mapping process simulates the use of common sensory hardware to determine datum points, including provision for field of view, detection range, and measurement accuracy. If traversal of a mapped area is indicated by the users&rsquo; targeting commands, path planning heuristics developed for MSRS by the author in earlier work are used to determine an efficient series of waypoints to reach the objective. Mutability of terrain is also explored- the user is able to modify the terrain without stopping the simulation. This forces the robots to adapt to changing environmental conditions, and permits analysis of the robustness of mapping algorithms used when faced with a changing world.<br /

Modeling and Simulation of the Humanoid Robot HOAP-3 in the OpenHRP3 Platform

The aim of this work is to model and simulate the humanoid robot HOAP-3 in the OpenHRP3 platform. Our purpose is to create a virtual model of the robot so that different motions and tasks can be tested in different environments. This will be the first step before testing the motion patterns in the real HOAP-3. We use the OpenHRP3 platform for the creation and validation of the robot model and tasks. The procedure followed to reach this goal is detailed in this article. In order to validate our experience, different walking motions are tested and the simulation results are compared with the experimental ones.This work has been supported by the Comunidad de Madrid Project S2009/DPI-1559/ROBOCITY2030 II, the CYCIT Project PI2004-00325 and the European Project Robot@CWE FP6-2005-IST-5

Cloud robotics platforms: review and comparative analysis

Due to the various advantages that the cloud can offer to robots, there has been the recent emergence of the cloud robotics paradigm. Cloud robotics permits robots to unload computing and storage related tasks into the cloud, and as such, robots can be built with smaller on-board computers. The use of cloud-robotics also allows robots to share knowledge within the community over a dedicated cloud space. In order to build-up robots that benefit from the cloud-robotics paradigm, different cloud-robotics platforms have been released during recent years. This paper critically reviews and compares existing cloud robotic platforms in order to provide recommendations on future use and gaps that still need to be addressed. To achieve this, 8 cloud robotic platforms were investigated. Key findings reveal varying underlying architectures and models adopted by these platforms, in addition to different features offered to end-users

Virtual reality interface for the guidance of underwater robots

Treball final de Grau en Disseny i Desenvolupament de Videojocs. Codi: VJ1241. Curs acadèmic: 2018/2019The main motivation to establish this project was my interest in virtual reality, I am intrigued by the amount of possibilities it can offer and how it can evolve. I also wanted to make an interface that was useful once finished. Thanks to the professor P. J. Sanz, who was willing to guide a project of these characteristics and to his recommendations and help during all the development time we were able to make this project oriented to HRI in underwater interventions