

Introduction

Link to the uuv_simulator repository here

Link to the documentation page

Chat on Discord

The Unmanned Underwater Vehicle Simulator is a set of packages that include plugins and ROS applications that allow simulation of underwater vehicles in Gazebo.

If you are using this simulator for your publication, please cite:

@inproceedings{Manhaes_2016,
    doi = {10.1109/oceans.2016.7761080},
    url = {https://doi.org/10.1109%2Foceans.2016.7761080},
    year = 2016,
    month = {sep},
    publisher = {{IEEE}},
    author = {Musa Morena Marcusso Manh{\~{a}}es and Sebastian A. Scherer and Martin Voss and Luiz Ricardo Douat and Thomas Rauschenbach},
    title = {{UUV} Simulator: A Gazebo-based package for underwater intervention and multi-robot simulation},
    booktitle = {{OCEANS} 2016 {MTS}/{IEEE} Monterey}
}

In you are willing to contribute to this package, please check the instructions in CONTRIBUTING.

Features

Gazebo/ROS plugins

• Implementation of Fossen's equations of motion for underwater vehicles
• Thruster modules with implementations for thruster's angular velocity to output thrust force based on Yoerger el al., 1990 and Bessa et al., 2006
• Lift and drag plugin for simulation of fins
• Simulation of 3D current velocity models (constant or based on first-order Gauss-Markov processes)
• Sensor plugins

Controllers

• For AUVs
  • casadi-based effort allocation algorithm
  • Geometric tracking PD controller
• For ROVs
  • Thruster manager with computation of the thruster allocation matrix based on the thruster frames available in /tf
  • Model-based feedback linearization controller (Fossen, 2011)
  • Nonlinear PID controller (Fossen, 2011)
  • Non-model-based sliding mode controller (García-Valdovinos el al., 2014 and Salgado-Jiménez et al., 2011)
  • PD controller with restoration forces compensation
  • 6-DOF PID controller
  • Singularity-free tracking controller (Fjellstad and Fossen, 1994)
• Teleoperation nodes for AUVs and ROVs

Gazebo world models

• Ocean wave shaders for wave animation
• Scenarios from the SWARMs project demonstration locations (e.g. Mangalia, Romania and Trondheim, Norway)
• Subsea BOP panel for manipulation tasks

Vehicle models

• Work-class ROV rexrov based on the model presetend in Berg, 2012
• eca_a9
• lauv_gazebo
• desistek_saga
• rexrov2

Installation

This packages has been released for the following ROS distributions

• kinetic (See installation instructions for ROS Kinetic)
• lunar (See installation instructions for ROS Lunar)
• melodic (See installation instructions for ROS Melodic)

Once the ros-<distro>-desktop-full package for the desired distribution is installed, the uuv_simulator can be installed as

kinetic

sudo apt install ros-kinetic-uuv-simulator

lunar

sudo apt install ros-lunar-uuv-simulator

melodic

sudo apt install ros-melodic-uuv-simulator

For instructions on how to install the package from source, check this instructions page

Purpose of the project

This software is a research prototype, originally developed for the EU ECSEL Project 662107 SWARMs.

The software is not ready for production use. However, the license conditions of the applicable Open Source licenses allow you to adapt the software to your needs. Before using it in a safety relevant setting, make sure that the software fulfills your requirements and adjust it according to any applicable safety standards (e.g. ISO 26262).

License

UUV Simulator is open-sourced under the Apache-2.0 license. See the LICENSE file for details.

For a list of other open source components included in UUV Simulator, see the file 3^rd-party-licenses.txt.

Releases