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News

UWSim as a library

Submitted by Mario Prats on Sat, 23/06/2012 - 10:37

UWSim can now be used as a library that can be linked to other projects. Doing it is quite straightforward using ROS, since you just have to include the dependency to UWSim into your manifest.xml. The most external API layer is basically composed of two classes: SceneBuilder and ViewBuilder. The former builds a scene graph, taking as input an XML file describing the scene. The latter creates a Viewer or a View. Use the Viewer for the default UWSim viewer, and the View if you want to integrate the UWSim rendering panel into another application (e.g. using Qt, wxWidgets, etc.). Both SceneBuilder and ViewBuilder store public attributes that point towards the deepness of UWSim, e.g. the robots and objects in the scene, the ocean properties, etc.

For instance, the following snapshot shows a grasp planning package that computes a suitable grasp on a point cloud, and uses UWSim as a library for visualization:

TRIDENT 2nd Annual Review

Submitted by Mario Prats on Mon, 07/05/2012 - 14:41

The IRSLab was in Girona during the last week (2-4/May), participating in the 2nd Annual Review of the TRIDENT FP7 european project. The main milestone to show was the mechatronic integration of the Girona 500 AUV, the Graaltech Arm (University of Genoa) and the hand (University of Bologna). All the systems were successfully integrated and a recovery mission was carried out in a tele-operated manner. See the following video for a summary:

 

Simultaneously, other two demos where performed in simulation using UWSim. They showed the leader following controller (Instituto Superior Técnico, Lisbon), and the free-floating controller (University of Genoa). They both integrated different parts of the whole TRIDENT architecture, such as target detection and tracking, pose estimation, arm/hand control, vehicle control and mission planning:

 

Kick-Off Meeting in Genoa

Submitted by Juan Carlos Garcia on Tue, 10/01/2012 - 00:00

Triton consortium in the Kick-off meeting

The TRITON kick-off meeting was held  in Genoa (Italy), on 9/01/2012. Researchers (left-right): M. Prats (UJI), N. Palomeras (UdG), D. Ribas (UdG), P.J. Sanz (IP, UJI), P. Ridao (IP, UdG), G. Oliver (IP, UIB), J. Sales (UJI), J.C. García (UJI), A. Burguera (UIB).

Release v1.1 of UWSim

Submitted by Mario Prats on Thu, 22/12/2011 - 12:55

IRSLab is proud to announce the new release of UWSim, an open source simulator for underwater robotics integrated in ROS. These are the main improvements with respect to the previous version:

  • Introduced XML configuration files for scene description
  • Introduced support for URDF format. Allows to create robots from URDF files.
  • Support for multiple vehicles, multiple cameras and multiple ROS interfaces
  • Introduced a new intermediate frame for relating simulated to real worlds
  • Example ROS interface nodes for updating vehicle and arm position.
  • New and improved scenarios and 3D models
  • Restructured into a ROS stack

Please check the UWSim website for more information

This is a video covering 360º of one of the example scenes:

IRSLab at ROBOT2011 and EU Robotics Week

Submitted by Mario Prats on Tue, 29/11/2011 - 11:16

IRSLab-UJI is actively participating at ROBOT2011 Workshop this week. We have presented two papers, one related to our activities in teaching using robotics, and another one about our underwater simulator UWSim. In addition, during this week we will hold several activities related with the European Robotics Week 2011, including a live stream of our activities at the lab.

Final RAUVI experiments in a harbour

Submitted by Mario Prats on Fri, 11/11/2011 - 17:43

On October 2011 we were at Roses (Girona), doing experiments on autonomous underwater intervention in the harbour. The task was to find and recover a Flight Data Recorder (black box) at some 4m depth in the harbour. The only cable connected to the autonomous vehicle was an ethernet cable used for monitoring the task. Inside the vehicle, there were 3 PCs devoted to vehicle control, arm control and visual processing. The robot successfully performed a survey of the area, found the black box, kept its pose visually on top of it and recovered it using a hook.

The following two videos show a summary of the experiments, that were carried out using the Girona 500 underwater vehicle, the Lightweight ARM 5E manipulator and stereo vision. The first shows a summary of all the parts and the results obtained. The other was recorded by a local TV.

 
 

 

2nd RAUVI integration meeting

Submitted by Juan Carlos Garcia on Fri, 11/03/2011 - 00:00

The IRS-Lab has gone to Girona University for the second RAUVI integration meeting. This is a video showing the results obtained in the RAUVI project on March 2011. An I-AUV (Intervention Autonomous Underwater Manipulator) recovers a data flight recorder from the bottom of a swimming-pool using vision-based control for both stabilizing the vehicle on top of the object, and guiding the end-effector through the task.

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