Robotics simulator

A robotics simulator is used to create embedded applications for a specific (or not) robot without depending "physically" on the actual robot, thus saving cost and time. In some case, these applications can be transferred on the real robot (or rebuilt) without modifications.

Features

Modern simulators tend to provide the following features:
* Fast robot prototyping
** Using the own simulator as creation tool (Webots, R-Station, Marilou).
** Using external tools (Gazebo uses Blender).
* Physics engines for realistic movements. Most simulators uses ODE (Gazebo, Marilou, Webots) or PhysX (Microsoft).
* Realistic 3d rendering. Standard 3d modeling tools or third party tools can be used to build the environments.
* Dynamic robot bodies with scripting. URBI language used by Webots, Python used by Gazebo.

imulators

Open source simulators

* [http://playerstage.sourceforge.net/wiki/Gazebo Gazebo] : Probably the most complete open source simulator to this writing (2008-01-31). Part of the Player project.
* [http://opensimulator.sourceforge.net/ OpenSim] Simulator for articulated and wheeled robots with a wide range of characteristics. Further development stopped in the year 2006.
* [http://simbad.sourceforge.net/ Simbad 3d Robot Simulator] Java based simulator
* [http://www.spiderland.org/ breve] 3d simulator using Python
* [http://diwww.epfl.ch/lami/team/michel/khep-sim/ Khepera] Apparently before Webots became commercial it was open source and called Khepera

Research simulators

* [http://robotics.ee.uwa.edu.au/simulation.html/ UWA Robot Simulators]

Commercial simulators

* [http://www.anykode.com/ Marilou Robotics Studio]
*Webots
*Microsoft Robotics Studio
* [http://www.visualcomponents.com/ Visual Components] )
* [http://www.cogmation.com Cogmation robotSim]