The Open source program RobWork Studio brings research in robot vehicles to virtual life at the RoboLab at the Faculty of Engineering. Together with a simulator developed at the RoboLab the program reproduces a mathematical model of reality, thus allowing the researchers to test drive robot vehicles before they venture into real life.
The researchers at the RoboLab no longer have to go outside to test a robot vehicle. They have designed a simulator that together with the existing simulation program RobWork Studio can reproduce the movements of a vehicle in the field.
RobWork Studio is an open source computer program originally designed for simulation and control of industrial robots which together with the newly designed simulator makes it possible to test robot vehicles on a regular computer. The only thing it needs is a Wii Remote which, via the computer’s Bluetooth connection and its own embedded gravity field monitor, controls the virtual robot vehicle on the screen by real-life movements of the hand.
Mathematical model of real life
Together with the RobWork Studio the simulator provides a mathematical model of real life with a mathematical formula for the movements of a robot vehicle. As a result the robot vehicles can now be test run without having to take them outside and, at the same time, get results very similar to test results from a real life environment.
- To test the vehicles in virtual environments has several added bonuses. In addition to the ability to quickly and easily test new modifications the simulator is also time saving; for example in not having to spend a lot of time moving the vehicles out of the lab. Moreover, and maybe even more important, the simulators provide a new understanding of how to use existing and fairly simple software in the development and design of robot vehicles, says Kjeld Jensen, project researcher at RoboLab.
Not just for researchers
The simulator is not reserved for the researchers at the RoboLab. The students at Robot Systems will from autumn 2009 use the simulator and RobWork Studio as an integrated part of their studies when they develop and test various projects.
Despite its elements of play the Wii Remote and the program is, according to Jensen, based on a wish to design products that in the future can be used in research as well as commercially.
Further information: Kjeld Jensen
Project Researcher at the RoboLab, Faculty of Engineering, University of Southern Denmark in Odense
Tel: +45 2778 1926 -
kjen@kbm.sdu.dk 13.01.2009
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