I noticed the LIDAR values for the simulation and the real-life robot are different. For example, the LIDAR value of 0 represents the front distance in the simulator but another value represents the front distance in real life. Did anyone notice this?
Which real robot and which simulated robot are you talking about?
If you are talking about the same robot in both simulation and real, then that means that there is an error in the simulation and it is not reflecting very well how the real robot is. This happens sometimes because manufacturers change the real robot but forget to update the simulation.
If you are talking about different robots, that is because not all the robots have the same lidar configuration. Each robot has its own configuration so you cannot expect that all lidar informations in the world will provide the lidar info in the same configuration. Because of that, when you get a new robot, it is good to check a single message of the lidar to see how it structures its data. All the config data can be found in a single lidar message by doing: