Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Validating Vision and Robotic Algorithms for Dynamic Real World Environments

  • Conference paper
Simulation, Modeling, and Programming for Autonomous Robots (SIMPAR 2010)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNAI,volume 6472))

Abstract

The efficient development of complex algorithms for mobile robot applications is strongly encouraged by appropriate testing and validation opportunities. In this paper, we present SIMORE (Simulation of Multirobot Environments), a simulation framework for simulating sensors, actuators and entire robots, in virtual 3D environments. It provides synthesized sensor data but also additional information emanating from the intrinsic properties of given virtual environments. SIMORE is built upon open-source libraries such as the OpenSceneGraph toolkit for scene rendering and the Open Dynamics Engine to guarantee a solid physical behavior. It provides easy to use modeling tools and plug-ins for creating and modifying the appearance as well as the dynamic properties of objects to be included in the scene. Our simulation framework possess a module based design capable of supporting further extensions and enhancements such as the definition of individual sensors and actuators. Beyond that, SIMORE offers exemplary interfaces for available robotic middleware applications, such as Player or ROS, allowing for a fast and flexible transition between simulation and real hardware platforms. Although still under active development, SIMORE is used to support several research propositions in robot vision, navigation and recognition as well as being a proven prototyping tool for robotic competitions, such as the Robocup (Rescue Ligue).

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution
Chapter
USD 29.95
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
eBook
USD 39.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Available as PDF
  • Read on any device
  • Instant download
  • Own it forever
Softcover Book
USD 54.99
Price excludes VAT (USA)
  • Compact, lightweight edition
  • Dispatched in 3 to 5 business days
  • Free shipping worldwide - see info

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Preview

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

Unable to display preview. Download preview PDF.

References

  1. Carpin, S., Lewis, M., Wang, J., Balakirsky, S., Scrapper, C.: Usarsim: a robot simulator for research and education. In: ICRA, pp. 1400–1405. IEEE, Los Alamitos (2007)

    Google Scholar 

  2. Balakirsky, S., Scrapper, C., Carpin, S., Lewis, M.: Usarsim: Providing a framework for multi-robot performance evaluation. In: Proceedings of the Performance Metrics for Intelligent Systems Workshop, p. 1 (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  3. Cyberbotics Ltd: Webots (2010), http://www.cyberbotics.com/products/webots/

  4. Koenig, N., Howard, A.: Design and use paradigms for gazebo, an open-source multi-robot simulator. In: Proceedings of IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  5. Rusu, R., Maldonado, A., Beetz, M., Gerkey, B.: Extending player/stage/gazebo towards cognitive robots acting in ubiquitous sensorequipped environments. In: ICRA Workshop for Networked Robot Systems, Rome, Italy, Citeseer (2007)

    Google Scholar 

  6. Mircosoft: Robotics developer studio 2008 (2010), http://www.microsoft.com/robotics

  7. NVIDIA Corporation: Physx (2010), http://www.nvidia.com/object/physx_new.html

  8. Baudry, A., Bungenstock, M., Mertsching, B.: Architecture of a 3D-simulation environment for active vision systems and mobile robots. In: Proceedings of First International Symposium on 3D Data Processing Visualization and Transmission, pp. 198–201 (2002)

    Google Scholar 

  9. Mertsching, B., Aziz, M., Stemmer, R.: Design of a simulation framework for evaluation of robot vision and manipulation algorithms. In: Proceedings of Asian Simulation Conference/The 6th International Conference on System Simulation and Scientific Computing (2005)

    Google Scholar 

  10. Kutter, O., Hilker, C., Simon, A., Mertsching, B.: Modeling and Simulating Mobile Robots Environments. In: 3rd International Conference on Computer Graphics Theory and Applications, Funchal, Madeira, Portugal (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  11. Smith, R.: Open Dynamics Engine, Version 0.8 (2007), http://www.ode.org/

  12. Burns, D., Osfield, R.: Tutorial: Open scene graph. In: Proceedings Virtual Reality, pp. 265–265 (2004)

    Google Scholar 

  13. OpenSceneGraph (2010), http://www.openscenegraph.org/projects/osg

  14. OGRE 3D (2010), http://www.ogre3d.org

  15. Mark, W., Glanville, R., Akeley, K., Kilgard, M.: Cg: A system for programming graphics hardware in a C-like language. In: ACM SIGGRAPH 2003 Papers, p. 907. ACM, New York (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  16. Zahedi, K., von Twickel, A., Pasemann, F.: YARS: A Physical 3D Simulator for Evolving Controllers for Real Robots. In: Carpin, S., Noda, I., Pagello, E., Reggiani, M., von Stryk, O. (eds.) SIMPAR 2008. LNCS (LNAI), vol. 5325, pp. 75–86. Springer, Heidelberg (2008)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  17. Gerkey, B., Vaughan, R., Howard, A.: The player/stage project: Tools for multi-robot and distributed sensor systems. In: Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Advanced Robotics, pp. 317–323. Citeseer (2003)

    Google Scholar 

  18. Calisi, D., Censi, A., Iocchi, L., Nardi, D.: OpenRDK: a modular framework for robotic software development. In: IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, IROS 2008, pp. 1872–1877 (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  19. Smits, R., De Laet, T., Claes, K., Soetens, P., De Schutter, J., Bruyninckx, H.: Orocos: A software framework for complex sensor-driven robot tasks. IEEE Robotics and Automation Magazine (2008)

    Google Scholar 

  20. Quigley, M., Gerkey, B., Conley, K., Faust, J., Foote, T., Leibs, J., Berger, E., Wheeler, R., Ng, A.: ROS: an open-source Robot Operating System. In: Open-Source Software Workshop of, ICRA (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  21. Aziz, M., Mertsching, B., Salah, M., Shafik, E., Stemmer, R.: Evaluation of visual attention models for robots. In: IEEE International Conference on Computer Vision Systems, ICVS 2006, pp. 20–20 (2006)

    Google Scholar 

  22. Aziz, M.Z., Mertsching, B.: Visual Attention in 3D Space - Using a Virtual Reality Framework as Spatial Memory. In: ICINCO-RA, pp. 471–474 (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  23. Shafik, M., Mertsching, B.: Fast Saliency-Based Motion Segmentation Algorithm for an Active Vision System. In: Blanc-Talon, J., Bourennane, S., Philips, W., Popescu, D., Scheunders, P. (eds.) ACIVS 2008. LNCS, vol. 5259, pp. 578–588. Springer, Heidelberg (2008)

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  24. Shafik, M., Mertsching, B.: Real-Time Scan-Line Segment Based Stereo Vision for the Estimation of Biologically Motivated Classifier Cells, p. 89 (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  25. Shafik, M., Mertsching, B.: Enhanced motion parameters estimation for an active vision system. Pattern Recognition and Image Analysis 18, 370–375 (2008)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  26. Lai, K., Fox, D.: 3D laser scan classification using web data and domain adaptation. In: Proceedings of Robotics: Science and Systems, Seattle, USA (2009)

    Google Scholar 

  27. Lim, E., Suter, D.: Conditional random field for 3D point clouds with adaptive data reduction. In: International Conference on Cyberworlds, CW 2007, pp. 404–408 (2007)

    Google Scholar 

  28. Lim, E., Suter, D.: 3D terrestrial LIDAR classifications with super-voxels and multi-scale Conditional Random Fields. Computer-Aided Design 41, 701–710 (2009)

    Article  Google Scholar 

  29. RoboCup: German Open (2010), http://www.robocup.org

  30. SICK AG: SICK Robot Day (2010), http://www.sick.com

  31. Mujahad, M., Fischer, D., Mertsching, B., Jaddu, H.: Closest Gap Based (CG) Reactive Obstacle Avoidance Navigation for Highly Cluttered Environments. In: IEEE/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems, IROS 2010 (2010)

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. GET Lab, Paderborn University, Pohlweg 47 - 49, 33098, Paderborn, Germany

    Tobias Kotthäuser & Bärbel Mertsching

Authors
  1. Tobias Kotthäuser
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Bärbel Mertsching
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. AIST Tsukuba Central 2, RT-Synthesis R.G., ISRI, AIST, 305-8568, Tsukuba, Ibaraki, Japan

    Noriaki Ando

  2. Intelligent Systems Division, National Institute of Standards and Technology, 100 Bureau Drive, M/S 8230, 20899-8230, Gaithersburg, MD, USA

    Stephen Balakirsky

  3. Department of Computer Science, Technical University Darmstadt, Hochschulstr. 10, 64289, Darmstadt, Germany

    Thomas Hemker  & Oskar von Stryk  & 

  4. Department of Management and Engineering (DTG), University of Padua, Stradella San Nicola, 3, 36100, Vicenza, Italy

    Monica Reggiani

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

© 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

About this paper

Cite this paper

Kotthäuser, T., Mertsching, B. (2010). Validating Vision and Robotic Algorithms for Dynamic Real World Environments. In: Ando, N., Balakirsky, S., Hemker, T., Reggiani, M., von Stryk, O. (eds) Simulation, Modeling, and Programming for Autonomous Robots. SIMPAR 2010. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 6472. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-17319-6_12

Download citation

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-17319-6_12

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-17318-9

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-17319-6

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics

Search

Navigation