This repository is dedicated to the new Rescue simulation environment for Robocupers from Juniors to Majors and is aimed to be a bridge from Robocup Junior Rescue to Robocup Major Rescue competitions, so that a kid could start with it (e.g. by using Scratch to move a simulated robot) and gradually be introduced with more complex problems and languages (e.g. implementing object detection and SLAM in ROS).
This repository is dedicated to the new Rescue simulation environment for Robocupers from Juniors to Majors and is aimed to be a bridge from Robocup Junior Rescue to Robocup Major Rescue competitions, so that a kid could start with it (e.g. by using Scratch to move a simulated robot) and gradually be introduced with more complex problems and languages (e.g. implementing object detection and SLAM by ROS).
A poster entitled as "A proposal on more advanced Robot Rescue Simulation challenges for Robotics Education" was presented in Workshop On Educational Robotics-WEROB 2019. In the poster, the reqiurments of a platform to be used as bridge to filling the gap between RoboCup Junoir Rescue and Virtual Rescue Robot competition for such a development are defined as follows:
- Being free and fully accessible to students to use,
- Ease of installation even on low-spec PCs,
- Interface that is intuitive to use.
- The ability to serve from fundamentals to higher complexity concepts,
- Easy transition to research-based platforms from educational-focused platform
After lots of investigations the team decided to work based on V-REP from the three selected platforms: V-REP, Webot, and Gazebo. V-REP provides a free license for educational purposes and accepts seven programming languages.
The scheme of Simplus V-rep could be found in the figure below.
The proposed platform structure is consist of 3 main parts; V-REP + models + worlds, Gama Manager + Robot Monitor, & Robot Controlling code.
V-REP released the latest version of V-REP 4.0.0 and named it CoppelliaSim just two weeks ago. We have tested our developlments also with V-REP 4.0.0 (CoppelliaSim) it works perfectly and even faster. It was a good sign here that V-REP at its' biggest update is compattible with our developments. We have prepared bunch of sample models and a sample world.
we have considered two senarios; a server/client senario and a combined version, both senarios include the Game Manager, Robot Monitor, and the Robot Controlling code. The point is that in a server/client based approach the robot controling code (which the teams are soppused to develope) could be separated and run by an different computers which makes it a better solution for compettitions.
We have developed a Game Manager that is fed by the rules (whatever it is, finding victim, moving victim or obstacles, moving to a particular position, avoiding traps, to make the list short: robots can even play football:) and we did not limit the rules just to the rescue)
The Game Manager has been developed to
- Control the game state such as Start, Pause, & Stop,
- Calculate the scores based on the fexible rules defined by TC/OCs, (One of the most difficult parts of the TC/OC jobs in Virtual Rescue is fairly calculating the score as it is a simulated environment, so it is necessary to have the automated scoring system)
- Show scoreboard.
The Robot Monitor shows the robot's sensors status, camera, orientation, & positions along providing a simple robot control panel, and possibility to connect with a real robot which might be intresting for kids.
The Robot Controlling code developed by the teams will be placed here. Simplus V-Rep supports lots of programming languages (e.g. Scratch, Python, C, C++, GO, Obejctive C, JAVA, Node.js, ... etc) which makes it available for any age, & any paroblem!
The developing team have prepared 2 sample codes moving one for Scratch, and an other for Python (more samples will be provided if needed).
In order to have a better understanding of how the installation and running is performed, we have provided a demo. Please have a look at the following video: https://youtu.be/zule-A18Qzo
It shows the installation process, and runs a sample of robot controlling code in order to show the robot interaction with the environment.
SimPlus will likely run on a modern dual core PC with a decent graphics card. Typical configuration is:
- Dual Core CPU (2.0 Ghz+)
- 2GB of RAM
- 256MB nVidia or ATI graphics card
Note that it may run on lower end equipment, though good performance is not guaranteed.
SimPlus compiles and run on Win/Linux/macOS (tested on Ubuntu variants only). It depends on the following libraries:
- Python version 3.5+
- Vrep Simulation
- Google Protobuf
- GRPC
- Bottle (Only needed for Scratch API)
