RubbleSim: A Photorealistic Structural Collapse Simulator for Confined Space Mapping

TL;DR

RubbleSim is an open-source, photorealistic simulation tool designed to emulate structural collapse void spaces for testing robotic perception and mapping in disaster response scenarios.

Contribution

It introduces a reconfigurable, physics-based simulator for realistic rubble pile environments, enabling research without access to proprietary or legal restrictions.

Findings

Perception performance degrades in challenging visual conditions within simulated voids.

The simulator supports rapid iteration and customization for diverse collapse scenarios.

Open-source release facilitates broader research and development in disaster robotics.

Abstract

Despite well-reported instances of robots being used in disaster response, there is scant published data on the internal composition of the void spaces within structural collapse incidents. Data collected during these incidents is mired in legal constraints, as ownership is often tied to the responding agencies, with little hope of public release for research. While engineered rubble piles are used for training, these sites are also reluctant to release information about their proprietary training grounds. To overcome this access challenge, we present RubbleSim -- an open-source, reconfigurable simulator for photorealistic void space exploration. The design of the simulation assets is directly informed by visits to numerous training rubble sites at differing levels of complexity. The simulator is implemented in Unity with multi-operating system support. The simulation uses a physics-based approach to build stochastic rubble piles, allowing for rapid iteration between simulation worlds while retaining absolute knowledge of the ground truth. Using RubbleSim, we apply a state-of-the-art structure-from-motion algorithm to illustrate how perception performance degrades under challenging visual conditions inside the emulated void spaces. Pre-built binaries and source code to implement are available online: https://github.com/mit-ll/rubble_pile_simulator.