SIMULATION TOOLS FOR ROBOTICS: SURVEY AND COMPARISON

摘要

The general idea of simulation tools is the imitation of a real-world process and thereby the prediction of the dynamic behavior of complex systems in a time-and cost efficient manner. Possible applications of this technology are endless, just like the amount of available simulation software tools. The research field of simulation provides efficient tools for (but not limited to) multi-body systems with for example robotic applications. Whereas there are some research approaches investigating their time efficiency, the main intention of simulation - representing the reality accurately - has not been in the focus of investigations yet. Therefore, analytically solvable, basic test scenarios are defined and used in this paper to evaluate fundamental physical properties in different simulation environments, to compare and benchmark these software tools regarding their physical accordance to reality. Another intention of the presented work is to analyze software tools with respect to their usability, possible modeling errors and typical deviations between simulation and reality.