Simulator Programming

Developing your code

On first run, the robot will execute an example program for convenience. This program will be copied to the directory competition-simulator-<version> is stored in:

.
├── competition-simulator-<version>
│   ├── ...
│   └─ worlds
│       └── Arena.wbt
└── robot.py

Your code should be developed in robot.py.

Running multiple robots

To test how your robot behaves in each starting zone of the arena, you can copy your robot’s code to run in each corner. Code can be placed in a zone-<zone> directory to run in starting zone <zone>:

.
├── competition-simulator-<version>
│   ├── ...
│   └─ worlds
│       └── Arena.wbt
├── zone-0
│   └── robot.py
└── zone-1
   └── robot.py

This will run two robots in the arena, each with different robot.pys. You can run as many or as few zones as you like, in any combination.

Robot

There is a pre-built robot used in the simulator. To allow this simulated robot to move around and sense its environment a set of motors and sensors have been connected as detailed below.

The simulator’s API is very similar to the real SR API described in the programming docs. The main differences are the way that time is handled, some discrepancies in the vision API we hope to resolve soon and the simulated robot not having the Brain Board LEDs.

Motors

Your robot has one motor board attached, the left wheel is connected to the first port, and the right wheel to the second.

The motor board has the part code srABC1, since only a single motor board is attached it can be referenced as R.motor_board.

Servos

Your robot has one servo board attached, the jaws of the robot are controlled by a pair of servos:

Setting each servo to -1 fully opens the respective jaw.

The servo board has the part code srXYZ2, but since only a single servo board is attached it can be referenced as R.servo_board.

Ruggeduino

Your robot has a microswitch and six distance sensors, attached to the digital and analogue pins respectively. These are all attached to a single ruggeduino.

Because these sensors are pre-attached to the ruggeduino, you do not need to set its pin_mode.

Microswitches

The microswitch is attached to digital pin 2:

This is shown as a red coloured block on the robot. Using the digital_read method, you’ll receive a bool telling you whether the switch is currently actuated.

Distance Sensors

Analogous to ultrasound sensors, distance sensors allow you to retrieve the distance between your robot and an object. These are attached to analogue pins A0-A5:

These are shown as blue boards with silver transceivers on the robot. The analogue_read method will return the distance in metres. They can see in a narrow cone up to a maximum of about 2m away. Since these sensors rely on echoes being reflected back from objects, if the angle of incidence between the sensor’s pulse and the contacted surface exceeds 22.5 degrees then the sensor will be unable to detect the object.

LEDs

The LEDs are attached to digital pins 3-4:

Using the digital_write method, you can set these to True (On) or False (Off).

Vision

The simulated robot has a camera which provides position and orientation information about other objects within the simulation. This simulates the system of fiducial markers which the physical robot’s camera can detect.

The information returned by the simulated vision API is similar to the physical robot’s vision API, however there are a number of differences as are noted in the vision docs.

Pressure sensing

Your simulated robot has two deployable ‘fingers’ that are able to lift the front of the robot up. These fingers have pressure sensors on their tips, with these you can determine the weight of an object your robot is carrying.

The servos to move the fingers are attached to servo pins 2 and 3 in the servo board:

Once the fingers are deployed, your robot will have reduced manoeuvrability, but you will be able to sense the total pressure on the front of the robot. The pressure measuring devices on the end of the fingers are available as analogue inputs on A6 and A7. They are meant to emulate sensors that output a value proportional to pressure, the higher the pressure the higher the voltage reading.

Simulated Time

In the simulated environment, time advances only at the pace that the simulator is run. As a result, using time.time to know how long your robot has been running for or time.sleep to wait for some duration will be unreliable.

As a result the API present in the simulator supports a slightly different approach to handling time. The methods R.time and R.sleep are provided as a direct replacement of time.time and time.sleep respectively and can be used anywhere the previous methods were used.