SimBot-a simulation tool for autonomous robots

This paper describes an autonomous robot simulation tool called SimBot. This tool allows users to create scenarios containing multiple autonomous robots and to develop controller programs for these robots. The tool manages the physical modeling of the scenario and generates the multiple 3D views necessary for robot vision and user viewing. The user builds up each robot from a library of configurable body parts. The robot controller programs are implemented as Windows DCOM objects and can be distributed transparently over networks. to speed up robot development, we have begun implementing a few C++ classes for vision analysis and path planning.