Simulation · Simulation & Digital Twins
CoppeliaSim 4.7·Coppelia Robotics
CoppeliaSim (known until 2019 as V-REP — Virtual Robot Experimentation Platform) is a robot simulator developed by the Swiss company Coppelia Robotics. The first V-REP release appeared in 2010; the rename to CoppeliaSim happened in 2019 alongside a company reorganization. CoppeliaSim stands out for its unique flexibility — it lets you choose one of four physics engines (Bullet 2.78/2.83, ODE, MuJoCo, or Newton Dynamics) per simulation object.
The CoppeliaSim architecture is based on scenes containing objects: shape (mesh), joint, force/torque sensor, vision sensor, proximity sensor, dummy. Each object may have an associated Lua script (main, customization, child script), and APIs available in C/C++, Python, Java, MATLAB, Octave, and via ROS. CoppeliaSim also offers remote-style APIs (ZeroMQ, WebSocket, HTTP) for external applications.
Reference models include KUKA, ABB, Fanuc, Universal Robots, Franka Panda, NAO, Pepper, Atlas, Spot, Husky, Pioneer, e-puck, Khepera. CoppeliaSim is popular in industrial robotics (offline programming), education (Free Edu Edition), and research — especially where the flexibility to choose a physics engine matters. Licensing: Edu — free for universities, Trial — 30 days, Player — free, Commercial — paid.
Simulation software is used for modelling, testing, and validating robot behaviours, sensor characteristics, environments, and algorithms without requiring physical hardware. It enables safe, repeatable, and cost-effective development cycles. Common robotics simulators include Gazebo, Isaac Sim (NVIDIA), MuJoCo, PyBullet, and Webots, each offering different trade-offs between physics accuracy, rendering fidelity, and integration with middleware frameworks such as ROS 2.
A Developer Tool is software designed to support the development workflow, including configuration, debugging, testing, monitoring, validation, and integration of robotic and embedded systems. Examples include IDE plugins, visual debuggers, log analysers, hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) test harnesses, and code-generation utilities specific to robotics platforms.
An API Library is a software package that exposes programmatic interfaces for communicating with a device, service, or system. In robotics it typically forms a lightweight integration layer built on top of the manufacturer's official API or an open-source project, abstracting low-level protocol details and providing language-native bindings (Python, C++, Java, etc.).
A family of open-source and commercial physics simulators for robotics: Gazebo, Webots, MuJoCo, PyBullet, Isaac Lab, CoppeliaSim, Genesis, and related tools. Common denominator: rigid-body physics engine, URDF/MJCF model support, ROS/ROS 2 integration, sim-to-real transfer.
Aldebaran NAO and Pepper (V-REP was the official simulator until 2017), KUKA LBR iiwa offline programming, Universal Robots e-Series, ETH Zurich Mobile Robotics, EPFL EE/CS curricula, IEEE iCub, MIT 6.832. The RoboCup consortium uses V-REP/CoppeliaSim for several categories.
github.com/CoppeliaRobotics/coppeliasim ~150★, forum.coppeliarobotics.com with 20k+ threads, official YouTube channel ~30k subscribers, > 1500 publications citing V-REP/CoppeliaSim.
Boston Dynamics bipedal humanoid robot. The fully electric generation unveiled in 2024 succeeds the hydraulic Atlas that was retired after more than a decade of research.
Tutor Intelligence industrial robot designed for palletizing, depalletizing and case-picking in warehouses and factories, offered as Robotics-as-a-Service from $14/hr.
Bipedal humanoid robot by Unitree Robotics, designed as a compact research, development, and developer platform.
The Edu edition is free for universities. Cross-platform and lightweight.
License family: Proprietary – Commercial
ROS 2 Jazzy support, improved MuJoCo integration.
Native Apple Silicon, new ZMQ Remote API.
MuJoCo as a physics engine, ROS 2 Humble support.
V-REP → CoppeliaSim rebrand, new scene engine.
Last version under the V-REP name.
First stable V-REP release.
