ROBOT SIMULATORS

DR. KHOA DO

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 A LIST OF ROBOT SIMULATORS
1. ARTE: A Robotics Toolbox for education
2. Matlab Robotics Toolbox_Peter Corke+
RTB interface to V-REP Toolbox+ V-REP
3. Gazebo
4. MORSE
5. OpenHRP
6. V-REP
7. OpenRave 2
 A LIST OF ROBOT SIMULATORS
8. SolidWork + Matlab Robotics
Toolbox_Peter Corke+ SimMechanics

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1. ARTE: A Robotics Toolbox for
education

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 Summary
• A Matlab toolbox focused on robotic
manipulators, both serial and parallel
mechanisms are included
• Website:
http://arvc.umh.es/arte/index_en.html#introd
uction
• Main features:
• Simulate any industrial robot within a Matlab
environment
• Represent a visualize the Denavit-Hartenberg's
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system on the robot
 Summary
• Main features:
• 3D graphics of a great number of industrial robots
are available
• Plot and observe the position, velocity and
acceleration of the joint coordinates of the robot
when a movement is performed
• The torques and forces at each joint can be
plotted.

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 2. Matlab Robotics
Toolbox_Peter Corke + RTB
interface to V-REP Toolbox + V-
REP

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 Summary
• RTB: A Matlab toolbox for the study and
simulation of classical arm-type robotics
• RTB interface to V-REP: A class based MATLAB
interface to simplify use of V-REP's Remote API.
• Website:
http://petercorke.com/wordpress/toolboxes/r
obotics-toolbox
• https://github.com/Rhys-Davies/rtb-sim

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 Summary
• RTB main features:
• Contains functions and classes to represent
orientation and pose in 2D and 3D (SO(2), SE(2),
SO(3), SE(3)) as matrices, quaternions, twists, triple
angles, and matrix exponentials
• Provides functions for manipulating and converting
between datatypes such as vectors, homogeneous
transformations and unit-quaternions
• Represent the kinematics and dynamics of serial-
link manipulators as MATLAB® objects
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3. Gazebo

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 Summary
• Gazebo: Robot Simulator based on Linux
system (Ubuntu)
• Website: http://gazebosim.org/tutorials
• Main feature
• Dynamics Simulation: Access multiple high-
performance physics engines
including ODE, Bullet, Simbody , and DART
• Advanced 3D Graphics
• Sensors and Noise
• Robot Models
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 Summary
• Main features:
• TCP/IP Transport: Run simulation on remote
servers, and interface to Gazebo through socket-
based message passing using Google Protobufs.
• Cloud Simulation : Use CloudSim to run Gazebo on
Amazon AWS and GzWeb to interact with the
simulation through a browser.

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4. MORSE

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 Summary
• Morse: Robot Simulator based on Linux system
(Ubuntu)
• Website:
https://www.openrobots.org/wiki/morse
• Main feature
• focuses on realistic 3D simulation of small to large
environments, indoor or outdoor, with one to
tenths of autonomous robots
• Entirely controlled from the command-line.
Simulation scenes are generated from simple
Python scripts. 14
 Summary
• Main features:
• comes with a set of standard sensors (cameras,
laser scanner, GPS, odometry,...), actuators (speed
controllers, high-level waypoints controllers,
generic joint controllers) and robotic
bases (quadrotors, ATRV, Pioneer3DX, generic 4
wheel vehicle, PR2,...)
• rendering is based on the Blender Game Engine.
The OpenGL-based Game Engine supports shaders,
provides advanced lightning options, supports
multi-texturing, and use the state-of-the-
art Bullet library for physics simulation. 15
5. OpenHRP

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 Summary
• OpenHRP: Open Architecture Human-centered
Robotics Platform on both Linux and Window
• Website:
https://fkanehiro.github.io/openhrp3-
doc/en/index.html
• Main feature
• inspect an original robot model and control
program by dynamics simulation
• provides various software components and
calculation libraries that can be used for robotics
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related software developments
 Summary
• Main features:
• designed as a distributed object system. It is
composed of a client program that manages the
servers and a group of server programs that offers
various functions. This composition caused to
improve the maintainability and the portability in
large-scaled simulation system developments
• corresponds with the OpenRTM that is a
distributed middleware for robots.

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 Summary
• Main features:
• The dynamics calculation engine of OpenHRP3 has
two editions, the development of the Tokyo
University, and the development of AIST. Each has
the following features:

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 Summary
• Main features:
• Tokyo University edition
– an original algorithm for a forward dynamics
algorithm. In algorithm of similar performance, it is
one of the fastest one all over the world, so it can
execute high-speed simulation as to a complicated
model.
– uses rigid body contact model which is more stable
numerically and formulates a condition about
reaction force including frictional force as linear
complementarily problem (LCP). 20
 Summary
• Main features:
• AIST edition
– applies Featherstone's algorithm and performs a
forward dynamics calculation in computational
complexity to be proportional to the number of the
joints.
– For a calculation of contact force, this edition
applies algorithm that calculates a solution of a
restraint condition in convergent calculation. So it
can make rigid body contact stable in numerical
computation. 21
6. V-REP

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 Summary
• V-REP: Integrated development environment,
based on a distributed control architecture
• Website:
http://www.coppeliarobotics.com/downloads.
html
• Main feature
• Each object/model can be individually controlled
via an embedded script, a plugin, a ROS or BlueZero
node, a remote API client, or a custom solution

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 Summary
• Main features:
• V-REP very versatile and ideal for multi-robot
applications. Controllers can be written in C/C++,
Python, Java, Lua, Matlab or Octave
• used for fast algorithm development, factory
automation simulations, fast prototyping and
verification, robotics related education, remote
monitoring, safety double-checking

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7. OpenRave

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 Summary
• OpenRave: Open Robotics Automation Virtual
Environment on both Linux and Window
• Website:
http://openrave.org/docs/latest_stable/
• Main feature
• main focus is on simulation and analysis of
kinematic and geometric information related to
motion planning.
• stand-alone nature allows is to be easily integrated
into existing robotics systems
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 Summary
• Main features:
• provides many command line tools to work with
robots and planners, and the run-time core is small
enough to be used inside controllers and bigger
frameworks. An important target application is
industrial robotics automation.

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8. SolidWork + Matlab Robotics
Toolbox_Peter Corke+
SimMechanics

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 Summary
• Another method to simulate robots by
combining multiple tools
• Ref Website:
https://blogs.mathworks.com/simulink/2014/0
7/10/from-solidworks-to-simmechanics/

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