Blog #10 — The Gazebo Simulator

Gazebo is an open-source robotics simulation environment used in the context of ROS (Robot Operating System). It provides a comprehensive platform for simulating complex robotic systems, including robots, sensors, and environments, enabling developers to test and validate their algorithms in a virtual environment before deploying them on physical robots.

<launch>
<!-- Load world into Gazebo -->
<include file="$(find gazebo_ros)/launch/my_world.launch">
  <arg name="world_name" value="$(find my_robot_description)/worlds/my_world.world"/>
  <arg name="use_sim_time" value="true"/>
  <arg name="gui" value="true"/>
</include>

<!-- Load robot model into Gazebo -->
<arg name="robot_model" default="$(find my_robot_description)/urdf/my_robot.urdf"/>
<param name="robot_description" textfile="$(arg robot_model)"/>

<!-- Spawn robot in Gazebo -->
<node name="spawn_urdf" pkg="gazebo_ros" type="spawn_model" args="-urdf -model my_robot -param robot_description -x 0 -y 0 -z 0"/>
</launch>

So far I've worked with a pre configured ROS system through The Construct site. For the purpose of running my own robotic program, I installed ROS iron on a virtual machine running Ubuntu, where I was able to configure RViz with Gazebo and launch my first URDF file with basic launch commands.

Conclusions:

In conclusion, the challenges encountered in configuring Gazebo highlight the importance of considering the intended use case. Whether for AI training or robot remote control, the configuration will largely depend on the specific requirements of the application.

Challenges:

I encountered multiple challenges while using this setup. The need to configure an Ubuntu virtual machine and install ROS-2 Iron, alongside the creation of essential launch files for world and environment loading. Gazebo presented limitations in frame rate and lacked flexibility in editing 3D scenes, such as the inability to scale objects due to file loading via URDF.