Symonym is the tool for visualizing, simulating and testing robots and dynamic systems in a physics based environment.  The system is both a viewer and a development application created by Acroname for demonstrating and testing electromechanical and software interactions.  The Symonym Free Player plays modeled scenes using OpenGL graphics with the ability to zoom, pan and tilt during runtime.  A simulation authoring tool generates optimized models from a XML scripting language for unparalleled portability and dissemination. 

What makes Symonym unique is the ability to send targeted code to dedicated communication sockets.  This allows the same code that would run on the physical system to target the simulation objects.  This process leverages Acroname technologies that include the BrainStem controller and the aRobot API framework. 

Symonym is built from the desire to rapidly manifest challenging systems in a closed environment that has the ruggedness of physically tested systems.  Prototyping is fraught with the tedious process that involves building, testing, deployment, adjustment and redesign.  One difficult challenge is that algorithms are created by a designer who has the added challenge of abstracting their programming decisions to think in terms of how the robot perceives.  Symonym provides the framework to design physical systems and algorithms from the robot's perspective, which can accelerate the design process. 

Symonym's development is the product of building complex physical systems that rely on the union of hardware and software.  Symonyms borrows extensible techniques used in data and visualization software applications such as plug-in architecture and models described by XML.  A cross platform (Windows, Linux and Mac OS X) simulation viewer and authoring tool is built from the ground up. 

Interactive simulation models are generated for contract customers to help demonstrate products, concepts or robot training environments.  A few models that have been created are:

• Acroname's Garcia mobile robot
• Acroname's TinkerTrike mobile robot prototype
• Hokuyo's scanning laser range finder

Symonym is built upon software frameworks and experience developed by Acroname.  The simulator combines the knowledge of building physical hardware systems to create an experience that is modeled after actual working systems.  In particular, BrainStem controllers are built as plug-ins that can be incorporated into any simulation.  Since Acroname built the BrainStem controller, the experience is identical when moving back and forth from simulation environment to physical system.  Physics engine based upon the Open Dynamics Engine (ODE) create the foundational physics simulator back-end.  The combination of true physical properties and dynamics built the basis for a powerful simulation tool. 

The following features are integrated into the Symonym environment:

• Rigid Body Dynamics Engine
• Simulated physical BrainStem controller hardware
• Simulated advanced sensors
• Multiple camera perspective views
• Target code execution
• Point cloud data visualization