Feature Request: Add SwerveDrive system plugin

[C88-YQ]

Desired behavior

Gazebo currently provides built-in drive systems such as AckermannSteeringDrive, DiffDrive and MecanumDrive, but does not include a native implementation for a swerve drive (four-wheel independent steering, 4WISD) system.

I would like to propose adding a SwerveDrive system plugin to gz-sim with the following capabilities:

• Four independently steerable wheels
• Independent wheel velocity control
• cmd_vel interface support
• Omnidirectional motion capability
• Consistent odometry estimation

Swerve drive systems are increasingly common in modern mobile robotics platforms due to their maneuverability and efficiency. Providing native support would expand gz-sim’s coverage of mobile robot kinematic models.

Implementation suggestion

The proposed SwerveDrive system would:

• Follow the architectural pattern of existing drive systems (DiffDrive, MecanumDrive, AckermannDrive)
• Compute steering angles and wheel velocities from commanded twist
• Publish odometry based on wheel states
• Include integration tests and example world files

To maintain consistency with other drive systems, it may be preferable to introduce a reusable SwerveDriveOdometry utility in gz-math, similar to existing odometry helpers for other drive types.

[C88-YQ]

Here are 2 short demo videos showing the current SwerveDrive implementation in simulation.

swerve_drive.mp4

steering_motion.mp4