Dear colleague,

For Open Architecture Controllers (OAC) you can try with LinuxCNC and ROS:

http://linuxcnc.org/: use for industrial applications, specifically for cnc applications. You can use python for simulation.

http://www.ros.org/: it has a large number of libraries compatible with commun robots.

Matlab has a specific toolbox for simulation.

Depends of your application can be available a specific robotic simulator.

You can see these documents with detailed information:

http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/download?doi=10.1.1.369.3980&rep=rep1&type=pdf

http://downloads.hindawi.com/journals/jr/2012/959013.pdf

http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/abstract/document/5752942/

Regards.

Try this simulator....

http://petercorke.com/wordpress/toolboxes/robotics-toolbox

Maybe you will find interesting the simulator in the following link:

https://github.com/habsoft/robosim

Regards

Try MSC ADAMS. Also, maybe you find interesting this:

https://adefid.com/about

Best regards

I believe Gazebo will be a good choice under linux

+1 for V-rep

Try Webots https://www.cyberbotics.com/overview

It is not free but it's really great. EDU Lic. isn't expensive.

Try ABB RobotStudio......... here's the link:

http://www.abb.com/product/ap/seitp327/a1078d9e5145d9a9c1257991004f3e69.aspxYou

+1 V-rep (easy to start)

+1 Gazebo (finally more flexible)

both work with ROS (awesome framework in robotics ;)