1. Simulation as a tool to speed up developing and testing G. Randelli, D. Calisi

2. Ups…

3. What is a Robotic Simulator? A brief definition: “A robotics simulator is used to create embedded applications for a specific (or not) robot without depending physically on the actual robot.” “The best simulator does not have to resemble reality in the most accurate way. The power of a simulator is to fit to our needs.” (Elron, 1983)

4. Why do we need simulation? Globally, there are one million industrial robot in service, as well as six hundred thousand household robots. ( source: United Nations Economic Commission, 2004 ) But... – Robots can be damaged – High Costs & Low Budgets – Tests Repeatability – Environmental Factors Simulators can get rid of these problems but can raise up new ones

5. Simulation advantages (1) “Simulations provide students with experience that may be difficult or impossible to obtain in everyday life” (Bork, 1981) Cost  No cost for any robot or equipment  No risk of damage, no hardware consumption, no maintenance  No human risk Time  Simulations can be run in parallel  You do not have to recharge the batteries (yes, it’s a waste of time)  Sometimes, simulation can be run faster than real-time

6. Simulation advantages (2) “Simulations provide students with experience that may be difficult or impossible to obtain in everyday life” (Bork, 1981) Experiments  We can reproduce whatever environment and situation we want, as complex and as dangerous as we desire  Experimental replicability  Scalability issues  We can simulate robots and sensors that we do not have, or that do not exist at all (yet)  Con be used in learning sessions (many repetitions of the same task), at least in a preliminary step (afterwards you would perform learning sessions on the real robot)

7. Simulation disavantages Simulation development is not effortless Physic laws simulation is not always realistic Simulation is not reality, thus a working simulated robot does not imply a working real robot Errors and noises simulation Simulations can introduce problems not present in the reality

8. How an OpenRDK agent interact with a simulator robot laserClient /robot/odometryPose /robot/speed /laserClient/laserData Robot driver Laser driver simClient /simClient/odometryPose /simClient/speed /simClient/laserData Simulator

9. Evaluation Criteria for a Robotic Simulator Physical Fidelity: the extent to which the virtual environment emulates the real world – High physical fidelity can enhance the learning process of the experiment attender Functional Fidelity: the degree to which the simulation acts like the operational equipment in reacting to the tasks executed by the trainee Ease of Development: environment creation ease, simulator changes ease, available documentation Cost: a simulator should be little time consuming

10. Commercial Simulators Webots, Microsoft Robotics Studio, RoboLogix, anyKode Marilou

11. Open Source Simulators Player/Stage/Gazebo, MissionLab, SimRobot, FlightGear, USARSim

12. Questions? Questions?