Willow Garage ROS - Robot Operating System Alternatives & Competitors

ABB's RobotStudio stands out as a powerful simulation and offline programming software, widely regarded as the most used tool of its kind in the world. Its offline programming capability enables programming, training, and optimization of robot systems without disrupting production, ensuring maximum return on investment and minimizing production downtime.

Built on the ABB Virtual Controller, RobotStudio offers realistic simulations using actual robot programs and configuration files from the shop floor. Its feature-rich package includes Virtual Meetings, enabling collaboration through sharing digital robot solutions in web meetings, reducing travel expenses and time. The Digital Twin concept allows real-time simulation of the production system without affecting ongoing production, facilitating changes and optimization in the virtual world.

RobotStudio's Virtual Commissioning replicates the production cell virtually, solving technical issues in advance and speeding up commissioning. The Stop Position Simulation visualizes optimal braking distance with millisecond precision, enhancing SafeMove usage, reducing cell footprint, and streamlining commissioning. Moreover, the Augmented Reality feature overlays modeled solutions as holograms in the real-life production environment, accessible through augmented reality glasses or smart devices. These unique specifications make ABB's RobotStudio an ideal option for industrial automation and offline programming.

Gazebo, developed by Open Robotics, is a collection of open-source software libraries designed to simplify the development of high-performance applications. While its primary audience includes robot developers, designers, and educators, Gazebo is versatile and can be adapted to various use cases. The modular design of Gazebo allows users to choose specific libraries tailored to their application's needs, promoting flexibility and avoiding unnecessary dependencies.

One of Gazebo's standout features is its trust and reliability, ensured through a curation and maintenance process led by Open Robotics in collaboration with a community of developers. Each library within Gazebo serves a specific purpose, reducing code clutter and promoting consistency between libraries. The development and maintenance process adheres to a rigorous protocol, including multiple reviews, code checkers, and continuous integration, ensuring the software's stability and robustness.

Gazebo offers an array of powerful features, making it an excellent option for industrial automation. It includes built-in robot models like PR2 and Pioneer2 DX, enabling users to start simulations quickly. The TCP/IP transport allows simulations to run on remote servers, providing flexibility and scalability. The 3D graphics environment offers advanced and realistic rendering, enhancing the simulation experience. Additionally, Gazebo supports custom plugin development for its API, facilitating integration with other software systems. The dynamic simulation capabilities, along with various sensors and camera modules, make it a comprehensive tool for testing and validating robotic systems in a virtual environment. Furthermore, Gazebo's compatibility with cloud simulations allows users to run simulations on platforms like AWS, leveraging the power of cloud computing for their automation needs.

RoboDK is a comprehensive robotic simulation and programming software that offers a user-friendly experience with five easy steps to simulate and program robots. It provides access to an extensive library of over 500 industrial robot arms from various manufacturers like ABB, Fanuc, KUKA, and Universal Robots. Moreover, it supports external axes such as turntables and linear rails, allowing users to model and synchronize additional axes effortlessly.

The software facilitates precise tool definition by loading 3D models of tools and converting them to robot tools by drag-and-drop actions. Users can calibrate robot tools accurately using RoboDK. Additionally, it enables the loading of 3D models of parts and placing them in a reference frame for a quick proof of concept. The simulation capabilities enable users to create robot paths using an intuitive interface, integrating with CAD/CAM software and accessing plug-ins for various design software.

RoboDK's standout feature lies in its ability to generate robot programs offline with just two clicks, supporting over 40 robot manufacturers with more than 70 post-processors. It eliminates the need for programming experience, making it accessible to a broader user base. Furthermore, it automatically generates error-free paths, avoids singularities, axis limits, and collisions, ensuring efficient and collision-free robot programming. The software's capability to split long programs enables easy loading into the robot controller, streamlining the programming process for industrial automation tasks.

FANUC ROBOGUIDE is a leading offline programming robot simulation software designed for FANUC robots. It offers process-focused robot simulation packages, enabling users to create, program, and simulate robotic workcells in a 3D virtual environment without the need for physical prototypes. This reduces costs and risks, allowing users to visualize single and multi-robot workcell layouts before actual installation.

ROBOGUIDE comes with various feature-specific modules. Handling Pro is ideal for material handling, packing, assembly, and material removal tasks, supporting line tracking and path programming. Paint Pro simplifies the painting process, allowing users to select paths and areas graphically for automatic program generation. Pallet Pro & Pallet tools enable users to build and test palletizing applications, offering a library of different pallet configurations. Weld Pro specializes in arc welding, featuring capabilities for CADD path programming.

In addition to the key features, ROBOGUIDE offers advanced functionalities like Auto Place, Duty, Cable, Vision, Spray, and COORD (coordination). These features enhance the software's versatility, enabling users to tackle complex and advanced systems efficiently. ROBOGUIDE supports CADD files, has built-in CADD models, and facilitates pre-programming, streamlining the setup and testing of sophisticated automation systems. Its compatibility with various software systems and extensive capabilities make it a unique and powerful option for industrial automation, providing valuable assistance to manufacturers and robotics developers.

MathWorks MATLAB is a widely-used programming and numeric computing platform utilized by engineers and scientists for data analysis, algorithm development, and model creation. It offers a powerful desktop environment, combining iterative analysis and design processes with a programming language that directly handles matrix and array mathematics. One standout feature is the Live Editor, allowing users to create executable notebooks that seamlessly integrate code, output, and formatted text.

MATLAB boasts professionally developed and thoroughly tested toolboxes, providing a wide range of functionalities for various applications. Interactive apps in MATLAB enable users to visualize algorithms in action with their data, facilitating iteration until desired results are achieved. Additionally, MATLAB's scalability allows for seamless analysis execution on clusters, GPUs, and clouds, with minimal code adjustments. Users can harness the power of these distributed computing resources without the need to rewrite their code or learn complex big data programming techniques.

Moreover, MATLAB's compatibility with various hardware architectures and its ability to scale easily make it an attractive option for industrial automation. Its tolerance for extreme temperatures or specific software systems is not explicitly mentioned in the provided information, but MATLAB's ability to handle distributed computing and its support for GPUs and clusters can be beneficial for industrial applications that require efficient processing of large datasets and complex algorithms.

Coppelia Robotics' CoppeliaSim is a leading robotics simulator known for its distributed control architecture, granting individual control over objects through embedded scripts, plugins, ROS nodes, and custom solutions. This unique versatility makes it an ideal choice for multi-robot applications, allowing developers to write controllers in C/C++, Python, Java, Lua, Matlab, or Octave, catering to diverse programming preferences. The simulator finds extensive application in fast algorithm development, factory automation simulations, prototyping, robotics education, remote monitoring, safety validation, digital twin simulations, and more.

CoppeliaSim's standout features include its Remote API, enabling seamless communication with external applications. Its support for multiple physics engines, such as Newton dynamics, vortex studio, and Bullet physics library, ensures accurate and realistic simulations. Additionally, it offers capabilities like inverse and forward kinematics calculations, motion planning with the OMPL library, sensor simulation (including proximity and vision sensors), and importing/exporting videos, images, mesh data, and text in various formats. The platform's data visualization and recording capabilities, collision detection, customizable dynamic particles, and building block concept further enhance its appeal as a comprehensive tool for research, development, and testing in robotics.

KUKA.Sim is a smart simulation software designed for efficient offline programming of KUKA robots. It enables users to optimize system and robot operations outside the production environment quickly and easily, leading to increased productivity, safety, and competitiveness. The software brings robot applications to life virtually, allowing real-time depiction and analysis of robot motion sequences. With features like reachability check and collision detection, users can ensure the feasibility of robot programs and work cell layouts, providing maximum planning reliability for manufacturing processes while minimizing costs and effort. KUKA.Sim's user-friendly interface allows for the simulation of a robot system in just a few minutes, even without deep programming knowledge.

The standout features of KUKA.Sim include its ability to offer real-time simulation and optimization of robot motion sequences, helping users identify and resolve potential issues before implementing them in the actual production environment. The software's reachability check and collision detection features add an extra layer of safety and accuracy to the programming process, ensuring that robot programs and work cell layouts are feasible and efficient. By utilizing KUKA.Sim for offline programming, manufacturers can reduce production downtimes, leading to increased productivity and overall competitiveness.

One of the unique aspects of KUKA.Sim is its ease of use and quick setup, allowing users to simulate a robot system in just a few minutes, even with limited programming knowledge. This accessibility makes it an attractive option for users of varying skill levels, enabling them to take advantage of the benefits of offline programming without requiring extensive training. Additionally, the software's compatibility with KUKA robots further streamlines the programming and implementation process, making it a specialized and efficient solution for industrial automation needs.

Webots is an open source and multi-platform desktop application used to simulate robots. It provides a complete development environment to model, program and simulate robots.

It has been designed for a professional use, and it is widely used in industry, education and research. Cyberbotics Ltd. maintains Webots as its main product continuously since 1998.

Features:

• Inbuild library (robots, objects, Sensors)
• web interface and streaming facility
• Importing CADD models
• Variety of simulations
• Automatic test suite for codes
• Huge online community support
• Online simulation challenges (website )

fruitcore robotics is a company that specializes in providing industrial robotic solutions. Their horstFX control system was designed with the clear goal of being as easy to use as a smartphone. They wanted to make it accessible to anyone, whether it be for simple processes or highly complex applications.

One of the key features of the horstFX software is its graphical user interface. This interface has been designed to be intuitive and user-friendly, making it easy for operators to navigate. The software has been specially developed for touchscreens and the operating panel that comes with the robot system. With this software, programs can be created graphically in no time at all, without the need for any programming knowledge.

fruitcore robotics offers different software packages, depending on the application, which can be booked on a monthly basis. These packages are completely customized, depending on the user's needs. One of the software packages offered is the horstFX Basic, which includes the ability to generate programs using text, use digital inputs and outputs, record process data, send process data to IIoT platform horstCOSMOS, and load grippers in the operating software.

Another software package offered by fruitcore robotics is the horstFX Graphic. This package includes the ability to generate programs graphically, use the digital twin for programming waypoints, program loops and IF statements graphically, generate functions graphically, load a 3D world or other 3D objects in the operating software, use the "Free movement" function, and generate palletizing programs.

The horstFX External package provides advanced interfaces and communication capabilities. This package includes the activation of the primary interface for execution of external function calls (via XML-RPC), the activation of the "Modbus" interface, and the activation of the "Profinet" interface.

Finally, the horstFX Performance package provides advanced robot performance capabilities. This package includes maximum robot speed and the ability to individually adjust the load for better cycle time.

fruitcore robotics understands that different users have different needs. That's why they offer software packages that can be customized to the user's needs. This flexibility ensures that users can find the right software package for their specific application. Additionally, fruitcore robotics offers service and support packages that can help reduce costs by extending the service life of the industrial robot. Proper function, availability, and cost-effective operation are always guaranteed with fruitcore robotics.

Delfoi SPOT is a fast, user-friendly, parametric and feature based offline programming software. The software can effectively utilise the features of a 3D CAD model. The necessary tools can be created in the software’s internal tool library, where the geometrical information is generated automatically. It is possible to create programs quickly and without the need for trial and error, and regardless of the robot brand.

Process features

• Import spot data from external source
• Manual spot picking
• Easy modification
• Robot synchronization
• IO-signals
• Collision detection; see advanced features
• Automatic path checking
• Management of robot tool changes
• Versatile calibration tools to ensure extreme accuracy for tool paths

Advanced features

• Automatic spot-welding path solver for collision free tool paths
• SPOT Importer – Import spot weld positions from external file: CSV, XML, Custom