Player and Stage at PJIIT Robotics Laboratory

Player/Stage/Gazebo is an Open-Source Software project designed for robotics research that provides infrastructure for distributed access to robotics equipment both real and simulated. Founded by Brian Gerkey, Richard Vaughan, Andrew Howard, Kasper Stoy and Nate Koenig, it it soon became popular among roboticists community. Project itself gained lots of contributors and many related software projects were started that support or make use of Player/Stage/Gazebo software. At PJIIT Robotics Laboratory we decided to deploy this software for educational purposes as well as for our Virtual Robotics Laboratory project where it plays significant role as an integration platform. Since it is Open-Source Software we were able to contribute new modules and also release fixes for bugs that we have found. This paper deals with our experiences with using and maintaining Player and Stage software.