Download-Of-The-Day 3 : RP1 Sim

I have made or atleast tried making many robots. And everytime it had been frustrating to troubleshoot them. Sometimes it was the circuit, sometime it was the gear arrangement, sometimes the wires and sometimes the logic. The gear and wire arrangements are easily troubleshooted, but when it comes to algorithm/logic it is troublesome. It is very fustrating.

Wouldnt it be nice if you could test your control and navigation algorithm for the robot without reprogramming the robot after you made a minor change. Rossum's Playhouse (RP1) an open-source robot simulator simulator allows you to do just that. So next time you prepare for a competition try to use this to simulate and optimimize your robot.

"From the original website "Rossum's Playhouse is a modest, two-dimensional robot simulation intended to aid developers implementing control and navigation logic. It allows applications to build a data-configurable robot which can interact with a simulated landscape or solve a virtual maze". Its written in JAva so its platform independent and has a client server model so the clients ( the robots ) can be written in language of choice.

The simulated robot can have a wide variety of sensors at its disposal like contact , range , paint ( LFR's ) etc . Also lots of other factors can taken into account while simulating your robot. The simulator consists of mainly three parts

• Server - This is the main environment in which the robots run.
• Clients - This is the code for the robots which can be written in java or c/c++ .
• Floor plans - This specifies the environment ( walls , paint etc ) in which the robot runs . There is also a CAD tool which can be used to develop the maps ."

This was just a small introduction to the RP1 sim for more you can visit there site at http://rossum.sourceforge.net/ which has all the downloads and documentation which you need to get up and running.

RP1 Sim [via Robotics India]

Die Dulci Fruere