Bridging Simulation and Robotics: A ROS 2 Interface for VR-Forces and VR-Vantage

In this guest article, Omer Salomon of Synergy Integration Ltd., an esteemed MAK distributor, explores the development of a ROS 2 interface for VR-Forces and VR-Vantage, enabling autonomy teams to leverage realistic MAK ONE synthetic environments for testing and training.

In simulation, we are used to two kinds of projects that rarely meet. One is the large exercise: hundreds of entities, real terrain, behaviours, a scenario that runs for hours. The other is the ownship simulator: one vehicle, modelled deeply, with its sensors and dynamics driving a real system in the loop. Robotics teams live in the second world, and they live there in ROS 2. So when a customer asked whether VR-Forces and VR-Vantage could drive their robot's autonomy stack, the interesting part was not whether the products could do it. It was that nobody had joined the two worlds for them before.