USARSim - Unified System for Automation and Robot Simulation

02/14/2007: New USARSim Release - v3

A new version of USARSim has been released. The following features, among others, have been added to the release: new robots (e.g. Soryu and Helicopter), a new mission package implementation, the ability to have prismatic joints, new messages, and new commands. Please take a look at the USARSim manual, which has also been updated, for more information on these new USARSim features.

In addition to the release, we have now posted 12 worlds for USARSim. They range from models of the NIST standard test arenas and RoboCup soccer stadiums to the Atlanta motor speedway and a portion of the Chesapeake Bay, MD. In addition, the arenas used in last year's RoboCup competition are included along with multiple test rooms.

As usual, please post bugs and requests to the SourceForge forum.

USARSim is a high-fidelity simulation of robots and environments based on the Unreal Tournament game engine. It is intended as a research tool and is the basis for the RoboCup USAR simulation competition.

USARSim models the 3 NIST reference arenas and the fixed NIKE Silo environment. The current version of USARSim includes models of the P2AT and P2DX robots by Activmedia, the AIBO and QRIO robots by Sony, the ATRVJr robot by iRobot, and the Talon robot by Foster-Miller. Contributed robots include the Zerg and Tarantula robots from the University of Freiburg.

Kinematically accurate models of new robots can be added using vehicle classes from the Karma Physics Engine, a rigid multi-body dynamics simulator that is part of the Unreal development environment.

The standard version requires the Unreal game engine bundled with Unreal Tournament 2004. By using a game engine, the simulator achieves high fidelity on commodity hardware. The Unreal runtime engine version uses a modified vehicle class.

Carpin, S., Stoyanov, T., Nevatia, Y., Lewis, M., Wang, J. (2006). Quantitative assessments of USARSim accuracy. Proceedings of PerMIS 2006.

Balakirsky, S., Scrapper, C., Carpin, S., and Lewis, M. (2006). USARSim: providing a framework for multi-robot performance evaluation. Proceedings of PerMIS 2006.

Carpin, S., Lewis, M., Wang, J., Balakirsky, S., Scrapper, C. (2006). Bridging the gap between simulation and reality in urban search and rescue. Robocup 2006: Robot Soccer World Cup X, Springer, LNAI.

Zaratti, M., Fratarcangeli, M., Iocchi, L. (2006). A 3D Simulator of Multiple Legged Robots based on USARSim. Robocup 2006: Robot Soccer World Cup X, Springer, LNAI.

Nielsen, C. and Goodrich, M. (2006). Comparing the usefulness of video and map information in navigation tasks. First Conference on Human Robot Interaction.

Voshell, M. and Woods, D. (2005). Breaking the Keyhole in Human-Robot Coordination: Method and Evaluation. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 49th Annual Meeting.

Hughes, S. and Lewis, M. (2005). Task-Driven Camera Operations for Robotic Exploration. Transactions on Systems, Man and Cybernetics Part A, IEEE, 35(4), 513-522.

Nourbakhsh, I., Sycara, K., Koes, M., Young, M., Lewis, M., and Burion, S. (2005). Human-Robot Teaming for Search and Rescue. Pervasive Computing, IEEE, 72-78.

Wang, J., Lewis, M., Hughes, S., Koes, M., and Carpin, S. (2005). Validating USARsim for use in HRI Research. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 49th Annual Meeting, 457-461.

Carpin, S., Wang, J., Lewis, M., Birk, A., and Jacoff, A. (2005). High fidelity tools for rescue robotics: Results and perspectives. Robocup 2005 Symposium.

Hughes, S. and Lewis, M. (2004). Assisted Viewpoint Control for Tele-Robotic Search. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 48th Annual Meeting (HFES'05), 2657-2661.

Wang, J., Lewis, M., and Hughes, S. (2004). Gravity-Referenced Attitude Display for Teleoperation of Mobile Robots. Proceedings of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society 48th Annual Meeting (HFES'05), 2662-2666.

Hughes, S., Lewis, M., and Wang, J. (2004). Robotic camera control for remote exploration. Proceedings of the 2004 Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems (CHI 2004), April 24-29, Vienna, Austria, ACM, 511-517.

Hughes, S., Manojlovich, J., Lewis, M., and Gennari, J. (2003). Camera Control and Decoupled Motion for Teleoperation. Proceedings of the 2003 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, Washington D.C., October 5-8, pp. 1339-1344.

Lewis, M., Berna, M., Sycara, K., and Nourbakhsh, I. (2003). Robots, Agents, and People. IEEE Workshop on Safety, Security and Rescue Robotics, Tampa, FL, Feb 19-20.

Lewis, M., Wang, J., Manojlovich, J., Hughes, S., and Liu, X. (2003). Experiments with Attitude: Attitude Displays for Teleoperation. Proceedings of the 2003 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics, Washington D.C., October 5-8, pp. 1345-1349.

Wang, J., Lewis, M., and Gennari, J. (2003). A Game Engine Based Simulation of the NIST USAR Arenas. Proceedings of the 2003 Winter Simulation Conference, New Orleans, LA, pp. 1039-1045.

Wang, J., Lewis, M., and Gennari, J. (2003). Interactive Simulation of the NIST USAR Arenas. Proceedings of the 2003 IEEE International Conference on Systems, Man, and Cybernetics , Washington D.C., October 5-8., pp. 1350-1354.

Wang, J., Lewis, M., and Gennari, J. (2003).USAR: A Game-Based Simulation for Teleoperation. Proceedings of the 47^th Annual Meeting of the Human Factors and Ergonomics Society, Denver, CO, Oct. 13-17. pp. 493-497.

Description	Developers
Bird's Eye Robot Viewer Use the vector world to draw a top down picture of the world, complete with both robot locations and path traces.	Stefano Carpin Todor Stoyanov
Radio Model Create a Radio Transmission Model.	Stefano Carpin Yashodhan Nevatia
Physics Validation We need to validate the values for friction, gravity, mass, force, unit length, etc...	Marco Zaratti Jijun Wang
Update Mission Package Code Chris Scrapper has proposed extensive changes to the mission packages.	Chris Scrapper Benjamin Balaguer
Update Effector Package Code Chris Scrapper has proposed extensive changes to the effector packages.	Chris Scrapper
Video/Acoustic Server Create an enhanced streaming video/acoustic server that will run at higher frame-rates under both Windows and Linux.	Marco Zaratti
Step Fields If engine permits, create a step field based upon individual blocks that are all karma actors.	Anthony Downs
Player Interface Update Update the player interface to USARSim to the latest player release.	Stefan Stiene
2007 Robocup World Create a skeleton of what next year's world will look like.	NIST
World Optimization Write an "how-to" on zone usage and world optimization to avoid the need to delete objects from unused zones.	NIST
New Cars Add some additional vehicles to use in outdoor scenes.	NIST

Description	Volunteer
New Robots Model and code the AirRobot and the DragonRunner.
Radiation Create a radiation source that can be added into worlds, as well as a radiation sensor for the robots.
Fix Victims Fix collisions boxes on victim animations and create some more realistic victims.
Physical League Competition Champion Model and code a version of the current champion from the Physical League Competition.
Robot Measurement Validation Validate robot measurements in USARSim and, if needed, change the size of invalid robots.
Robot Model Validation Severe physics inaccuracies exist in our robot models. These need to be fixed.
Vector World Extract a 2D vector world, perhaps in MIF format, from a T3D file. This could be useful for various external applications such as the radio model, robot viewer, and feature server.
Fire Create a fire source that can be added into worlds, as well as a temperature sensor for the robots.
Damage Create a way to damage robots from falls, high temperatures, random failures, etc...
Robot Run Time Validate that battery life works correctly and implement 20 minutes of battery time.
Building Generation Create generic templates for a wall and door to enable the automatic generation of buildings. This would allow developers to specify a building blueprint to get a complete building.
Furniture Generation Create several generic furnished rooms that the auto-building generator can use to furnish the building.
Disappearing Objects During the competition we had several instances of disappearing actors. We need someone to look and write a report on this issue.
Multi-Socket Interface Look into the possibility of having a separate command/status socket from the data socket for the controller.
Server Load Meter Create a graphical output of the fps and socket load on the server.

Dates/Times	Description
From: 07/01/2007 To: 07/10/2007	"RoboCup is an international joint project to promote AI, robotics, and related field. It is an attempt to foster AI and intelligent robotics research by providing a standard problem where wide range of technologies can be integrated and examined. RoboCup includes three major themes: RoboCup Soccer, RoboCup Rescue, and RoboCup @ Home."
Official RoboCup Atlanta 2007 Webpage

Vehicles	Sensors	Worlds
AIBO ATRVJr HMMWV P2AT / StereoP2AT P2DX QRIO Sedan Submarine Talon Tarantula		Arda NIST Yellow Arena NIST Orange Arena NIST Red Arena NIST Black Arena Plywood Maze Point Lookout RoboCup 2006 - Day 1 RoboCup 2006 - Day 2 RoboCup 2006 - Day 3 RoboCup 2006 - Day 4a RoboCup 2006 - Day 4b RoboCup 2006 - Day 5b RoboCup 2006 - Day 5c Soccer Field Test Room Validation Test

Date	Name/Link	Made by
10/14/2006	Time Scale Correction	Marco Zaratti
10/05/2006	Robot Validation Map	Marco Zaratti
09/02/2006	Units and Scaling	Jijun Wang
07/23/2006	Karma Mass Test	Marco Zaratti
07/21/2006	LeggedSim Integration Beta1	Marco Zaratti
07/20/2006	Engine Load at 500uu/m Scale	Marco Zaratti
07/19/2006	Scaling Robots and Maps in USARSim	Marco Zaratti
07/16/2006	AIBO at Various Scales	Marco Zaratti
07/14/2006	Engine Load at Different Scales	Marco Zaratti
07/10/2006	Karma Gravity Test	Marco Zaratti
07/06/2006	Karma Engine Parameters Compendium	Marco Zaratti
07/04/2006	LeggedSim Integration - Scale Issue	Marco Zaratti

Name/Links	Description
USARSim Manual 2.1	Latest Official USARSim manual in PDF format. The USARSim manual is comprised of 107 pages and describes, in details, every facet of the simulation, from the installation to the addition of new sensors, effectors, and robots. Although the manual will look overwhelming at first glance, it is a must-have for any user!

Description	Completed
Test Track World Create a large world for testing on-road driving algorithms.	Chris Pepper
LeggedSim Get the legged-sim and models checked into the CVS repository.	Marco Zaratti
Scaling Scale all the USARSim maps and robots using the 250uu/m scale.	Jijun Wang
Re-Code Robots Reprogram existing robots to fit new class structure.	Benjamin Balaguer
Underwater Robot Controller There has been interest expressed in underwater simulation. This would create extensions to support this.	Stephen Balakirsky Benjamin Balaguer
Gas Create a gas source that can be added into worlds, as well as a gas sensor for the robots.	Jijun Wang