<title>Simulator for developing mobile robot control systems</title>

Abstract

A simulator is designed for developing and testing navigation and control strategies for mobile robots which provides an animation of a robot and its environment on a computer screen. The environment is two-dimensional consisting of walls and objects which can be either stationary or moving. Sensors for non-contact range measurement can be attached to the robot or placed in stationary positions in its environment. The operation of the simulator has been verified in tests on a reactive distributed control system for a mobile robot and a more common model-based navigation approach. Implementation of the simulator is made more flexible by using an object-oriented approach.