// the find
uuvsimulator/uuv_simulator
Gazebo/ROS packages for underwater robotics simulation
A Gazebo/ROS plugin suite for simulating unmanned underwater vehicles, implementing Fossen's hydrodynamic equations of motion with thruster models, current disturbances, and multiple pre-built controllers. Aimed at academic robotics researchers doing AUV/ROV work who need a physics-grounded simulation without building it from scratch. The SWARMs EU project origin is visible throughout.
The physics foundation is solid — Fossen's equations with proper 6-DOF hydrodynamics, two thruster models (Yoerger and Bessa), and Gauss-Markov current modeling is more than most simulators bother with. Controller variety is genuinely useful: sliding mode, feedback linearization, and singularity-free tracking give you real options beyond basic PID. Thruster allocation matrix is computed automatically from TF frames, so adding a new vehicle doesn't require hand-tuning a TAM. The template scripts for generating new robot models reduce the boilerplate of wiring up a new URDF from scratch.
Dead since August 2023 and targets ROS Melodic / Kinetic — both EOL, with no ROS 2 port. You'll be fighting dependency hell immediately if you're on anything modern. The README points to Travis CI builds that haven't passed in years and a Discord that may be empty. Gazebo Classic is being replaced by Ignition/Gz, and this repo makes no move toward that transition, so the simulation backend itself is aging out. The 'research prototype' disclaimer in the README is honest but undersells the problem: there's no active maintainer, 382 forks but almost no upstream PRs merged, and open issues going back years unanswered.