Gazebo is an open-source 3D robotics simulator. Gazebo was a component in the Player Project from 2004 through 2011. Gazebo integrated the ODE physics engine, OpenGL rendering, and support code for sensor simulation and actuator control. In 2011, Gazebo became an independent project supported by Willow Garage. In 2012, Open Source Robotics Foundation became the steward of the Gazebo project. OSRF changed its name to Open Robotics in 2018. Gazebo can use multiple high-performance physics engines, such as ODE, Bullet, etc. It provides realistic rendering of environments including high-quality lighting, shadows, and textures. It can model sensors that "see" the simulated environment, such as laser range finders, cameras, Kinect style sensors, etc.
Competitions
Gazebo has been used as the simulation environment for a number of technology challenges and competitions.
The DRC was a prize competition funded by the US Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. It aimed to develop semi-autonomous ground robots that could do "complex tasks in dangerous, degraded, human-engineered environments."
NASA selected 20 finalist teams based on their performance completing some tasks in the Gazebo 3D robot simulator, and each of those finalists had to program a Valkyrie humanoid to complete a repair mission on a simulated Mars base.
The winner of the SRC was team Coordinated Robotics.
Link to simulation environment at https://bitbucket.org/osrf/srcsim
The Prius Challenge is a competition where participants battle it out to see who can achieve the best fuel economy and efficiency rating on a Prius within a target time range. Toyota Research Institute welcome competitors to the event at Sonoma Raceway on March 3, 2017
Open Robotics created a Gazebo-based simulation environment for the competition in which teams practiced and tested theories and strategies for the race-day competition
Twenty teams competed in the event, which was won by Echo 12 with an average of 85 mpg and the winner for the best overall lap was Team El Diablo with 211 mpg
Link to simulation environment at https://bitbucket.org/osrf/priuscup/src/default/
First place in the 2017 ARIAC competition was won by Realization of Robotics Systems, Center for Advanced Manufacturing, University of Southern California.
First place in the 2018 ARIAC competition was won by Team Sirius, Denbar Robotics.
First place in the 2019 ARIAC competition was won again by Team Sirius, Denbar Robotics.
Simulation environment at https://bitbucket.org/osrf/ariac/wiki/Home
[DARPA] Service Academy Swarm Challenge (SASC){{cite web |url=https://www.darpa.mil/about-us/timeline/service-academies-swarm-challenge
The DARPA Subterranean or “SubT” Challenge seeks novel approaches to rapidly map, navigate, and search underground environments during time-sensitive combat operations or disaster response scenarios.
Teams in the Virtual track will compete for up to $1.5 million in the Virtual Final event, with additional prizes of up to $500,000 for self-funded teams in each of the Virtual Circuit events.
Simulation environment at https://bitbucket.org/osrf/subt/wiki/Home
Virtual RobotX Competition (VRX)
2019
The VRX is an international, university-level competition funded by the Office of Naval Research and designed to broaden student’s exposure to autonomy and maritime robotic technologies. Student teams will operate their vehicle in a Gazebo-based simulation environment built by Open Robotics and Naval Postgraduate School. Students will be tasked to develop innovative solutions to ensure their virtual USV can perform prescribed tasks in this environment. Tasks for this competition have been derived from RoboNation’s Maritime RobotX Challenge.
