Simulating bob_robotics models using Gazebo

Brains on Board (http://brainsonboard.co.uk) is an inter-university project with the aim of developing an autonomous flying robot with the learning abilities of a honeybee, with all computation performed on board. Part of the project involves developing a lightweight C++ library for running neural simulations in real time on small robots (https://github.com/BrainsOnBoard/bob_robotics). The BoB robotics framework currently lacks the following:

• A physics-based simulation engine
• Models of the sensors being used

This project aims to integrate BoB robotics with a more sophisticated 3D simulation package i.e. Gazebo. The main contributions of this project shall be:

• Prepare Gazebo world environments for real-world 3D models that are currently available with bob_robotics.
• Modelling the sensors (specifically those that mimic the vision of insects) and robots used by the BoB robotics team into Gazebo.
• Integrating Gazebo with BoB robotics so that the simulated robots can be controlled using BoB robotics models, e.g. test out a navigation model on a good simulated model of a drone.