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POSIM — Platform for Ocean Simulation · documentation checked 2026-10-01

Target: ROS 2 Lyrical / Gazebo Jetty. Current source. Compatibility names such as dave_* are intentional. Start with POSIM Installation and POSIM Quickstart & Backend Support.

Source documentation and inherited illustrations do not certify every runtime configuration. Published Docker candidates, development main, and experimental WGPU are distinct states.

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Before the examples, source ROS and the matching workspace using POSIM Native Installation or POSIM Docker Guide. Commands containing ~/posim_ws below refer to a native source workspace; in a prebuilt container use its documented $POSIM_WS/install/setup.bash instead. Existing illustrations are retained from the DAVE documentation and are not new POSIM runtime captures.

🌊 Ocean Current Overview

✨ Highlights

• Publish of ocean current velocity in the world (Ocean Current World Plugin, Ocean Current Plugin)and each underwater vehicle subscribes to apply its effects (Ocean Current Model Plugin)
• Ocean current velocity is defined at the world SDF file with following format options,
  • Constant velocity(velocity and direction)
  • Stratified velocity(CSV file)
  • Tidal oscillation constituents
• The model-level current plugin publishes the local water-velocity vector; the vehicle hydrodynamics system consumes that vector to compute hydrodynamic forces
  • The current velocity updates incorporate a Gauss-Markov model to simulate noise disturbances, which is typical for ocean current representations.

Plugin Structure and Topic flow chart

📍 Demo Quickstart

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Launch the POSIM ocean-current scene below after sourcing the matching workspace. Inspect both published current and vehicle response; a topic alone is not proof that hydrodynamic force was applied.

ros2 launch dave_demos dave_robot.launch.py z:=-5 namespace:=rexrov world_name:=ocean_current_plugin paused:=false verbose:=true gui:=false headless:=true use_teleop:=false use_web_joystick:=false

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🗺️ Ocean Current World Plugin

The OceanCurrentWorldPlugin is a Gazebo-based simulation plugin designed to model ocean currents in underwater environments. It enables the simulation of both constant and stratified ocean currents with optional tidal oscillations. The plugin publishes current velocity data, allowing integration with underwater robotics simulations.

✨ Features

• Constant Ocean Currents:

  Models uniform currents across the simulation world using configurable parameters.

• Stratified Ocean Currents:

  Models depth-dependent ocean currents using a database of velocity and depth values.

• Tidal Oscillations:

  Adds sinusoidal oscillations to simulate tidal effects based on harmonic constituents or a tidal database.