TERA: A Simulation Environment for Terrain Excavation Robot Autonomy

TL;DR

This paper introduces TERA, a versatile simulation environment built on Unity3D and AGX, designed to support autonomous excavation research by providing high-fidelity, configurable, and real-time simulation of excavators and their interactions with terrain.

Contribution

The paper presents TERA, a novel, scalable simulation platform that integrates realistic dynamics and perception capabilities for autonomous excavator development.

Findings

Successfully simulates track deformation and terrain interaction.

Demonstrates realistic system responses with time-varying models.

Shows high similarity to real excavator behavior.

Abstract

Developing excavation autonomy is challenging given the environments where excavators operate, the complexity of physical interaction and the degrees of freedom of operation of the excavator itself. Simulation is a useful tool to build parts of the autonomy without the complexity of experimentation. Traditional excavator simulators are geared towards high fidelity interactions between the joints or between the terrain but do not incorporate other challenges such as perception required for end to end autonomy. A complete simulator should be capable of supporting real time operation while providing high fidelity simulation of the excavator(s), the environment, and their interaction. In this paper we present TERA (Terrain Excavation Robot Autonomy), a simulator geared towards autonomous excavator applications based on Unity3D and AGX that provides the extensibility and scalability required to study full autonomy. It provides the ability to configure the excavator and the environment per the user requirements. We also demonstrate realistic dynamics by incorporating a time-varying model that introduces variations in the system's responses. The simulator is then evaluated with different scenarios such as track deformation, velocities on different terrains, similarity of the system with the real excavator and the overall path error to show the capabilities of the simulation.