Robotics Overview

The Simulation Gems help to build robotic simulations with ROS 2 / Robot Operating System .

They contain a number of components to build robotic simulations, such as sensors, controllers of different types of drives, manipulator arms, and dynamic spawning of robots. The core Gem, ROS2 also comes with plenty of utilities. Finally, the ROS2RobotImporter Gem provides tools to import robots from common formats.

Gems

There are several Gems to power robotic simulations with Open 3D Engine (O3DE).

• ROS 2 Gem, the central and the most important one. It provides most features and other robotics Gems depend on it.
• ROS 2 Sensors Gem, which provides sensor components such as Lidar, Camera, IMU, Odometry, GNSS, and Contact.
• ROS 2 Controllers Gem, which provides components for controlling joint systems such as manipulator arms, grippers, and vehicles.
• ROS 2 Robot Importer Gem, which provides a tool to import robots from URDF, SDF, and XACRO formats.
• Georeferencing Gem, a helper Gem enabling simulated robots to use global positioning devices and geo-reference APIs.
• Asset Gems providing sample ROS 2 prefabs (robots) and scene decorations, including:
  • ROS 2 Sample Robots Gem providing assets of ProteusRobot, ROSBot XL, and Panda Franka robots.
  • WarehouseAssets and WarehouseAutomation Gems providing useful assets for warehouse environments
• 3rd party Gems:
  • Robotec GPU Lidar (RGL) Gem - GPU accelerated LIDAR simulation in O3DE using CUDA.
  • Robotec Vehicle Dynamics Gem - simple vehicle controller.

Templates

There are three templates for robotics:

• ROS 2 project template :
  • A small warehouse scene with ROSBot XL robot (differential drive AMR) and a sample implementation of a ROS 2 subscriber and a ROS 2 publisher linked with ImGui interface.
  • It is the most lightweight and basic robotic project template.
  • It is possible to navigate the AMR with a provided ROS 2 launcher script.
• Warehouse project template :
  • A large warehouse scene ready to spawn multiple Proteus robots (differential drive AMRs).
  • It is easy to add more robots using the included spawning component.
  • It is possible to spawn and navigate three AMRs with a provided ROS 2 launcher script.
• Manipulation project template :
  • A small room level with a Panda Franka robotic arm for R&D in manipulation domain.
  • Suitable for use-cases with robotic arms, presenting a gripper. Items for manipulation are included.
  • It is possible to manipulate the items with a provided ROS 2 launcher script.

:bulb: The template repositories also include examples that you can try out by following their README files.

Demos

There are open-source project demonstrating what can be done with the ROS 2 Gem:

• Robot Vacuum Sample : a robot vacuum navigating in a beautiful apartment:
• Robot Harvesting Sample : agricultural robots orchestrated through ROS 2 to pick apples in a scenic orchard.
• Automated Fulfillment Center : robotic arms and Autonomous Mobile Robots working on palletization and intra-logistics.