paper: Using a Virtual Robot Model – Testing and Debugging Autonomous Code Through Simulation

[Chris Hibner]

We started using simulation to test and debug autonomous code since the first year autonomous mode was introduced. Way back then (in 2003), we designed and implemented our autonomous control in Simulink+Stateflow (kind of similar to LabVIEW, but from The Mathworks instead of NI).

Using Simulink, we were able to create a nice simple robot model to fully test and debug our autonomous code. We then auto-coded our autonomous code directly from the Simulink/Stateflow models, just like what what teams are doing today with LabVIEW.

Now that FIRST is using LabVIEW, we ported the same simple robot model concept over to the LabVIEW framework. Thanks to simulation, our autonomous code is now fully debugged and working even though we don't have a robot yet.

Simulation is a great tool, and not just for FIRST. This is the way it is often done in the real world. I hope this is useful to some teams.