Incorporating large scale SSRR scenarios into the high fidelity simulator USARSim

The Unified System for Automation and Robot Simulation is a very popular robot simulator based on the commercial Unreal game engine by Epic Games. Tools shipped with Unreal Tournament 2004 allow to quickly put together simple simulation scenarios. The simulator is particularly suited for research on safety, security, and rescue robotics (SSRR) as demonstrated by its usage by various research groups and as basis for the RoboCup Rescue Virtual League. However, even through its use in international competitions like RoboCup, only a small number of high quality and large scale simulation worlds have been designed. This paper presents a collection of tools developed at Jacobs University Bremen to mitigate this situation and allow the conversion and import of large scale virtual environments in a variety of industry leading 3D modeling formats. Results are presented based on the conversion of a large environment model of a German military base and an adjacent town.