V-REP Demonstration on Robotic Simulation

V-REP is a robot simulator with a range of functions, features and APIs. The robot simulator V-REP, with integrated development environment, is based on a distributed control architecture: each object/model can be individually controlled via an embedded script, a plugin, a ROS node, a remote API client, or a custom solution. This makes V-REP very versatile and ideal for multi-robot applications. Controllers can be written in C/C++, Python, Java, Lua, Matlab or Urbi.

Run time - 4:35 minutes.

V-REP is used for fast algorithm development, factory automation simulations, fast prototyping, and verification, robotics-related education, remote monitoring, safety double-checking, etc.

Following are V-REP's main features:

• Cross-platform
• 5 programming approaches (embedded scripts, plugins, ROS nodes, remote API clients, or custom solutions)
• 6 programming languages (C/C++, Python, Java, Lua, Matlab, and Urbi)
• more than 300 different API functions
• 100 ROS services, 30 ROS publisher types, 25 ROS subscriber types, extendable
• 2 physics engines (ODE and Bullet)
• Full kinematics solver (IK and FK for ANY mechanisms)
• Mesh-mesh interference detection
• Mesh-mesh minimum distance calculation
• Path planning (holonomic in 2-6 dimensions, non-holonomic for car-like vehicles)
• Vision sensors with built-in image processing (fully extendable)
• Realistic proximity sensors (minimum distance calculation within a detection volume)
• Built-in custom user interfaces, including editor
• Fully integrated Reflexxes Motion Library type 4
• Surface cutting simulation
• Data recording and visualisation (time graphs, X/Y graph or 3D curves)
• Integrated shape edit modes, including a semi-automatic primitive shape extraction method
• Dynamic particles for water-/air-jet simulation
• Model browser with drag-and-drop functionality (also during simulation)
• Multi-level undo/redo, movie recorder, simulation of paint, exhaustive documentation, etc.

CAD models shown in the video are courtesy of:

• Lyall Randell
• Eric Rohmer
• Mey Lean Kronemann
• Ryuichi Hodoshima
• Hironori Itou
• J-m@n
• Theo Jansen
• EPFL (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Lausanne)
• Hirose-Fukushima lab, Tokyo Institute of Technology
• Hibot corporation
• K-Team corporation
• Cubictek corporation
• NT Research corporation
• ONO-DENKI CO.,LTD. Japan
• Kuka corporation
• Neuronics AG
• ABB Robotics. ABB Robotics has however no link of any kind with V-REP
• Barrett Technology inc.