YARS: A physical 3D simulator for evolving controllers for real robots

Abstract

This paper presents YARS (Yet Another Robot Simulator), which was initially developed in the context of evolutionary robotics (ER), yet includes features which are also of benefit to those outside of this field. An experiment in YARS is defined by a single XML file, which includes the simulator configuration, the (randomisable) environment, and any number of (mobile) robots. Robots are either controlled through an automatised communication, or by dynamically loaded C++ programs. Therefore, YARS, although still under active development, is comparable with commercial and open-source robot simulators which include a physics engine such as Webots and Breve but with a much stronger focus on requirements originating from the field of evolutionary robotics. © 2008 Springer Berlin Heidelberg.