Abstract
Larger fields in the Middle-size league as well as the effort to build mixed teams from different universities require a simulation environment which is capable to physically correctly simulate the robots and the environment. A standardized simulation environment has not yet been proposed for this league. In this paper we present our simulation environment, which is based on the Gazebo system. We show how typical Middle-size robots with features like omni-drives and omni-directional cameras can be modeled with relative ease. In particular, the control software for the real robots can be used with few changes, thus facilitating the transfer of results obtained in simulation back to the robots. We address some technical issues such as adapting time-triggered events in the robot control software to the simulation, and we introduce the concept of multi-level abstractions. The latter allows switching between faithful but computionally expensive sensor models and abstract but cheap approximations. These abstractions are needed especially when simulating whole teams of robots.
This work was partially supported by the German Science Foundation (DFG) in the Priority Program 1125, Cooperating Teams of Mobile Robots in Dynamic Environments and by the NRW Ministry of Education and Research (MSWF). Further support by the Bonn-Aachen International Center for Information Technology (B-IT) is gratefully acknowledged.
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Beck, D., Ferrein, A., Lakemeyer, G. (2008). A Simulation Environment for Middle-Size Robots with Multi-level Abstraction . In: Visser, U., Ribeiro, F., Ohashi, T., Dellaert, F. (eds) RoboCup 2007: Robot Soccer World Cup XI. RoboCup 2007. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 5001. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-68847-1_12
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-68847-1_12
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