Development of a Simulator of Environment and Measurement for Multiple Autonomous Mobile Robots Considering Camera Characteristics

Abstract

In this paper, a simulator of environment and measurement that considers camera characteristics is developed for multiple autonomous mobile robots. RoboCup 4-legged robot league is chosen as the concrete target. The simulator introduces a sever/client system, and realizes separation of each robot's information, introduction of each robot's difference and distribution of processes. OpenGL is utilized to produce virtual images. So as to make a simulator reflect real environment, sensing noises should be considered. The simulator considers the effects of blur, element noises, vignetting, lens distortion and delayed exposure for each line of the CMOS image sensor. Experiments show the similarity between actual camera images and simulated camera images. Consequently, it is possible to verify programs for multiple autonomous mobile robots on the simulator, and therefore the proposed simulator is a useful tool for effective development of algorithms.