V-REP is a 3D robot simulator based on a distributed control architecture: control programs (or scripts) can be directly attached to scene objects and run simultaneously in a threaded or non-threaded fashion. This makes V-REP very versatile and ideal for multi-robot applications, and allows users to model robotic systems in a similar fashion as in reality - where control is most of the time also distributed.

Complex simulation can be created by making use of the various supported functionality, including:

- 2 physics engines support (Bullet and ODE)
- Full forward/inverse kinematics solver (handles any type of mechanism)
- Collision detection calculations
- Minimum distance calculations (mesh-mesh distance)
- Path planning (holonomic tasks in 2-6 dimensions and non-holonomic tasks for car-like vehicles)
- Proximity sensor simulation (exact minimum distance calculation within a customizable detection volume)
- Camera-like sensor simulation (fully customizable, with image processing capabilities)
- Various integrated edit modes (mesh edit modes, path edit mode, and custom UI edit mode)
- CAD data import/export (DXF, OBJ, 3DS or STL)
- Simulation data recording, graphing and export
- Various extension mechanisms (through scripts, plugins or a custom client application)

Here a video on the e-puck model running:

V-REP has various prices and licensing schemes. Students can use V-REP on their private computer free of charge.