Aspire, the technology program management arm of the Advanced Technology Research Council, announced today that Open Robotics will provide an open source simulation platform for employment during the simulation phase of the Mohammed bin Zayed Global Challenge to Marine Robotics. This technology includes historical weather data provided by the Swiss company meteoblue which will in turn provide great benefit in the next stage of the competition as the semi-finalists will complete the scan and intervention tasks during the simulation. Open Robotics, the world leader in robotics simulation software and application development, will build the simulation platform on Gazebo and the Robot Operating System.
Gazebo is an open source 3D robotic simulation software that efficiently and accurately simulates the functioning of robots in a wide range of applications, including marine robotics. It also has a powerful physics engine, advanced 3D graphics and programming interfaces, in addition to its ability to integrate with the ROS system. Gazebo also provides a 3D model library that offers many of the robotic assets and 3D environments that are readily available for simulation. While meteoblue is a weather service provider that provides highly accurate weather information for anywhere on land or sea, it will allow competitors to use historical weather data from the past 20 years in Abu Dhabi to simulate real-world weather conditions.
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Provides a simulation platform for the Mohammed bin Zayed Global Challenge to Marine Robotics
Dr. Ray O. Johnson, Acting CEO of Aspire, said: “We have chosen Open Robotics and meteoblue companies that are known to be leaders in their respective fields. The Mohammed bin Zayed Global Marine Robotics Challenge aims to enhance the prospects for innovation and development in the field of marine robotics, which is why we chose these two companies. We are keen to provide a world-class simulation environment for the competitors.” The simulation environment of the Mohammed bin Zayed Global Challenge to Marine Robotics will include a large coastal area, drones with different sensor settings, a model of a drone, a robotic maneuver, and several target ships.
A set of ROS 2 APIs to control the bots and read data from sensors will be demonstrated in the simulation. Communication between the bots will also be provided through a separate set of APIs, as the communication links will be exposed to packet loss and interference common to external wireless communications. The ROS is a set of software libraries and tools that are used to build applications for robots. This system contains the tools needed for any robotic project, from engines to advanced algorithms and powerful developer tools. “We will make all software open source, pursue transformational technologies and encourage global collaboration to spur innovation in marine robotics. We know that making technology available to all will help drive innovation,” Johnson added. For his part, Brian Gerke of Open Robotics expressed his happiness to participate in the challenge, emphasizing the company’s vision to support the development, distribution and adoption of open source software for use in robotics research, education and product development.
In this context, he said: “As part of our efforts to become the center of the global robotics community, we are building open platforms for robotics equipment and software to be used by the scientific community to solve major problems. The Mohammed bin Zayed Global Marine Robotics Challenge is an excellent example of this, and we are excited that Be part of this challenge.” Open Robotics provides two open platforms, ROS and Gazebo, for robots to be programmed using ROS and simulated by Gazebo. “These platforms are used extensively around the world for production, classroom projects, and more,” said Brian Gerke. The Mohammed bin Zayed Global Marine Robotics Grand Challenge simulation platform will run on Ubuntu 20.04 /Focal/. Users can also install the software from the source for testing and local development. Docker images for the simulation environment will be made ready-to-use.
