What's a good Robotics Simulator? [closed]

Question

So I'm currently doing some robotics research, and we have a custom built arm in the lab that we would like to simulate. I've done a little googling and wikipedia searching, and there seems to be a fair amount of open source and proprietary applications for doing just what I need, such as Gazebo, LpzRobots, Webots, RoboLogix, and others. Our primary research tools are in C++ and interface over network.

My question is, does anyone out there have any experience in dealing with robotics simulators? Can you recommend which if any of these I should jump for, or whether I should just pick up and start writing my own from scratch? My primary use for it will be motion planning testing (so I'd like to be able to control the position of the robot exactly without worrying about dynamics) and controller dynamics testing (just the opposite) for a custom kinematic chain robot.

Answer 1

Microsoft Robotics have the MS Robotics Studio which is a full set of tools for any type of robot... UAVs, UGVs, Manipulators, etc.

One of such tools is the VSE (Visual Simulation Environment) based on the AGEIA Physics engine that allows simulation of not only the kinematics of your robot, but also simulation of sensors and of the environment.

They might even have the 3D model of the arm you are using, I know that they have one for the KUKA LBR3 for example.

_{(source: microsoft.com)}