What's a good Robotics Simulator?

Question

So I'm currently doing some robotics research, and we have a custom built arm in the lab that we would like to simulate. I've done a little googling and wikipedia searching, and there seems to be a fair amount of open source and proprietary applications for doing just what I need, such as Gazebo, LpzRobots, Webots, RoboLogix, and others. Our primary research tools are in C++ and interface over network.

My question is, does anyone out there have any experience in dealing with robotics simulators? Can you recommend which if any of these I should jump for, or whether I should just pick up and start writing my own from scratch? My primary use for it will be motion planning testing (so I'd like to be able to control the position of the robot exactly without worrying about dynamics) and controller dynamics testing (just the opposite) for a custom kinematic chain robot.

Answer 1

If you're familiar with C++ programming language, WEBOTS, ROBOWORKS, V-REP are at least three simulation software C++ compatible. A comprehensive list with robotic simulation software is here

Answer 2

I've been playing with SimSpark recently. It's the platform that's used for the RoboCup 3D Simulated Soccer League.

_{(source: google.com)}

Answer 3

I would never recommend writing your own simulator unless you are forced to. It is not a great learning experience, and it will never work as well as the ones that have been improved over many years by thousands of people.

With that said, the ones I have had positive experiences with are Gazebo and open dynamics engine (if you are using Matlab for your simulation). I would definitely recommend using Gazebo in combination with ROS. They are both becoming more standard and constantly improving. There are pre-existing simulations that you can base yours on like the erratic robot (for two wheeled differential drive platforms) and the PR2 (for humanoid type platforms). If you just want to do collision checking and kinematics, then I would recommend using rviz and the urdf format in ROS. Very easy to get started with and very well tested.

By the way, I have used Microsoft Robotics Developers Studio in the past, and it is not as good as ROS. I know they have a new version that fixes a lot of their previous issues, but there is no point because it does not have the extensive codebase or community that ROS does.

Answer 4

Microsoft Robotics have the MS Robotics Studio which is a full set of tools for any type of robot... UAVs, UGVs, Manipulators, etc.

One of such tools is the VSE (Visual Simulation Environment) based on the AGEIA Physics engine that allows simulation of not only the kinematics of your robot, but also simulation of sensors and of the environment.

They might even have the 3D model of the arm you are using, I know that they have one for the KUKA LBR3 for example.

_{(source: microsoft.com)}