In recent years robots have dramatically improved in functionality, but as a result their designs have also become more complicated. The increase in the complexity of the tasks and the design of the robot result in a challenging and time-consuming robot development cycle. This paper identifies requirements for improving the robot development process, focusing on facilitating a reliable transition process from simulation to real world tests. Building on the Hardware-in-the-Loop (HIL) simulation

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... aradigm, we propose to apply the concept of Mixed Reality (MR) to robot simulation for creating a testbed where real and virtual objects are capable of interacting with one another. This paper contributes a conceptual MR framework for providing a generic simulation environment for experimentation. Using our conceptual framework, we implement an MR robot simulator that integrates widely accepted robotic software frameworks with standardised data interfaces to increase interoperability. Case study evaluations demonstrate the reuse of the MR robot simulator in three different applications, illustrating how it could help to create realistic test environments, and address development cost and efficiency issues.