Simulation of Multiple Autonomous Mobile Robots Using a Gazebo Simulator

Abstract

Simulation is an indivisible part of the development and testing of robotic systems. This is also true for the simulation of interactions among multiple mobile robots. This paper presents a design of a multi-mobile robot simulation that is built on ROS and a gazebo simulator. Focus is given to an interaction between the ROS node which encapsulates access to hardware and the gazebo. In this design communication with hardware is redirected to the gazebo server with the usage of its transport protocol. All robots are executed inside docker containers and communicate with the gazebo server which also runs inside a docker container. Further in the paper is a description of the gazebo model plugin which acts as a virtual PLC and provides a behavior of hardware. Since all robot models are spawned in one virtual environment they can interact with each other. This is demonstrated in the conclusion where is an example of a factory environment that holds three mobile robots which could see each other.