The utilization of spherical camera in simulation for service robotics
This work addresses the problem of realistic vision testing for service robotics, but it is incremental as it builds on existing simulators with a specific camera type.
The paper tackled the challenge of testing vision systems in robotics by using a spherical camera to record test images and integrating them with an existing robotic simulator, resulting in a system that can be extended with rendered objects for improved usability.
Safety is one of the most critical factors in robotics, especially when robots have to collaborate with people in a~shared environment. Testing the physical systems, however, must focus on much more than just software. One of the common steps in robotic system development is the utilization of simulators, which are very good for tasks like navigation or manipulation. Testing vision systems is more challenging, as the simulated data often is far from the real camera readings. In this paper, we show the advantages of using the spherical camera for recording the sequences of test images and a~way to integrate those with existing robotic simulator. The presented system also has the possibility to be extended with rendered objects to further improve its usability.