1. ORCA Robot Simulator HY-475 Autonomous Robot Navigation

2. Introduction Originally created by Harris Mpaltzakis. Useful tool for the verification of algorithms and methods. Provides the core on top of which various modules can be built and tested. Provides a visualization mechanism which facilitates verification. For the course needs you can use features such as: Simulation of sensor measurements: laser, sonar, bumpers etc. Ground truth (for debugging and evaluation) Embedded motion control Visualization

3. Architecture 3-tier architecture: Proxy server. User module (client). Simulator (client) TCP/IP protocol used for the connection and communication between tiers

4. The simulator can: Receive motion commands. Send measurements. Given: An environment. A motion command. Provides measurements and simulates real states, such as noise. Simulator

5. Proxy Server The simulator communicates with modules only via a proxy server. The proxy server is responsible to control traffic from and to the simulator. The proxy receives commands from the modules and forwards them to the simulator. Whenever measurements are available, the simulator sends them to the proxy, which is responsible to forward them to the appropriate modules. Each module which needs data from the simulator needs to inform the proxy.

6. User modules The user module lies at the other end of the communication schema. In order to communicate with the simulator it first needs to subscribe its “interest” to the proxy. A user module can: Send motion commands to the simulator. Receive, whenever available, measurements from the simulator. Different modules can ask for different measurements. Modules don’t need to receive all available measurements (but only the required instead).

7. General Instructions Download and install ORCA http://www.csd.uoc.gr/~hy475/orca_setup.exe Study carefully packet structure in orca_com.ini Also described in orca_com.pdf Experiment with map generation (optional) default shortcut indicates the used environment env.rigid3d.ini describes map geometry Study provided samples for Java and C Online demo