Gazebo Robot Simulation

    Hi everyone,

    I am currently working with a KUKA Iiwa and all the programming is done in Java on Sunrise Workbench. However, it has become useful to simulate the code before I deploy it in the robot controller. I see a lot of people simulating robotic applications with Gazebo and ROS. In my previous company I would use RobotStudio to simulate the robot movements in a cell and I was wondering I could do the same using only Gazebo for the KUKA Iiwa.

    My question is: Is it possible to simulate the code of robot applications ONLY using Gazebo? If yes, how? If not, why? If I need ROS, why?

    I am sorry but I am just starting and as much research I do, I can't find the answer for these questions.

    Thank you so much!

    • Best Answer

    As far I can tell, Gazebo is used more to create the virtual environment, but not to control the robot. To do this, You also would need to use Move-it os some other package like that.

    Control the robot means that ROS can stream the movements commands directly to the robot, and also read its current position.

    But I'm not sure if there is any pre-processor that can read iiwa Java code written elsewhere and convert it on something ROS would understand.

    To simulate and iiwa, the closer option I found was RoboDK. Again, I'm not sure if You can import Java code easily in it. But You can program the robot paths and export these movements from it.

  • dmartins January 13, 2025 at 12:34 PM

    Selected a post as the best answer.
    Quote from massula

    As far I can tell, Gazebo is used more to create the virtual environment, but not to control the robot. To do this, You also would need to use Move-it os some other package like that.

    Control the robot means that ROS can stream the movements commands directly to the robot, and also read its current position.

    But I'm not sure if there is any pre-processor that can read iiwa Java code written elsewhere and convert it on something ROS would understand.

    To simulate and iiwa, the closer option I found was RoboDK. Again, I'm not sure if You can import Java code easily in it. But You can program the robot paths and export these movements from it.

    Thank you for your answer.

    What about KUKA Sim? I know I can simulate and program the robot in it but soon I intend to integrate another devices with the robot and I was wondering if it is possible to program and test the applications on KUKA Sim and integrate it with ROS?

    Hello,

    The reason you can't simulate your robot with only gazebo is that gazebo alone is a program for modeling and rendering work spaces (or "worlds").

    ROS is an environment that was designed for open source robot simulation. It comes with a few supported packages and a lot of user made ones (here's one for your robot).

    What causes the confusion is that the ROS and Gazebo team have worked together to create a package called gazebo_ros (now ros_gz_sim) that allows you to render your robot in sync with its state in ROS as well as simulate sensor input data from your world.

    To my knowledge there is no such package and I doubt there will ever be, ROS is pretty much competing with their proprietary software for free soooo...

    If you intend on integrating more devices without leaving the KUKA Sim ecosystem you should investigate with them for plugins/additional software. It's very likely they already have proprietary solutions prepared as long as you can pay for them.

    Otherwise, you can move to the ROS environment, but there is a fairly steep learning curve (just a beginner myself).

    Quote from dmartins

    Thank you for your answer.

    What about KUKA Sim? I know I can simulate and program the robot in it but soon I intend to integrate another devices with the robot and I was wondering if it is possible to program and test the applications on KUKA Sim and integrate it with ROS?

    I didn't played with KUKA.Sim 4.x series yet, so maybe thing changed in these newer versions, but as far I can tell, KUKA.Sim can simulate and export programs just for robots that use KRC controllers. iiwa use Sunrise controller. Is a different product.

    To my knowledge, the only simulation software oackage that have the riiwa obot models in their library and also can export the paths to Java is RoboDK.

    Anyway, I would suggest check with KUKA if You can simulate an iiwa with KUKA.Sim. Or even ask in iiwa section here in the forum what solutions people use to simulate these robots.

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