Simulation Modeling of Highly Dynamic Omnidirectional Mobile Robots Based on Real-World Data

Simulation is a key technology in robotics as it enables the generation of environmental data and testing scenarios for development and maintenance purposes. How- ever, simulations are an imperfect representation of the real- world and the so-called sim-to-real gap between simulation and reality hinders the deployment of virtual developed so- lutions without additional effort. Modeling complex systems like highly dynamic and holonomic mobile robots presents additional complexities in simulation. This paper addresses these challenges through a case study on creating a model for a highly dynamic logistics robot. The study considers the modeling of the entire system down to creating suitable colliders for the rollers of a Mecanum wheel. Additionally, the impact of significant physics parameters is presented. To bridge the sim-to-real gap, a pipeline is developed that utilizes a Motion Capture system to compare the behavior of a real robot with its simulated counterpart across various motions. By leveraging expert knowledge gained from the real-world data, the simulation model is manually tuned to replicate complex system behaviors, such as sliding effects.