This article presents a plugin for the Gazebo simulation platform based on Cosserat rods to model plant motion. The plugin enables the simulation of plants and their interaction with the environment, which is essential for training agricultural robots. The plugin allows users to conduct harvesting simulations in Gazebo by simulating a robotic arm picking fruits and achieve results comparable to real-world experiments. The authors believe that simulating plants will play an important role in addressing the disparity in the progress of robotics in agricultural applications.

 

Publication date: 4 Feb 2024
Project Page: https://youtu.be/r8Q31w4bNbs
Paper: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2402.02570