Abstract:
The open source Stage simulator is a plug-in for the Player robotic software system, that enables the user to test robotic devices in a simulated environment. While designing and building the hardware for a new robotic system might consume numerous months, the Stage simulator provides for building a simulation world with different robotic devices, and for the execution of different tasks, in a time frame of less than a week. Recent additions to Stage include a 2.5D version for simulating objects with simple height properties. However, the 2.5D version of Stage is incomplete. This project aims to provide a complete working solution for 2.5D. Several changes to Stage 2.5D are reported, including improvements to the collision detection and the addition of a gripper device that moves in the z direction. The solution for the collision detection issue provides full 2.5D collision detection functionality and the gripper model is used to allow the robot to complete simple 2.5D tasks such as stacking an object on top of another.