[REVIEW]: RobotDART: a versatile robot simulator for robotics and machine learning researchers

[editorialbot]

Submitting author: @costashatz (Konstantinos Chatzilygeroudis)
Repository: https://github.com/NOSALRO/robot_dart
Branch with paper.md (empty if default branch):
Version: v1.0.0
Editor: @boisgera
Reviewers: @c-joly, @bstanciulescu
Archive: Pending

Status

Status badge code:

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Markdown: [![status](https://joss.theoj.org/papers/e13ef9a388c2a9adbfc174fabbeddfce/status.svg)](https://joss.theoj.org/papers/e13ef9a388c2a9adbfc174fabbeddfce)

Reviewers and authors:

Please avoid lengthy details of difficulties in the review thread. Instead, please create a new issue in the target repository and link to those issues (especially acceptance-blockers) by leaving comments in the review thread below. (For completists: if the target issue tracker is also on GitHub, linking the review thread in the issue or vice versa will create corresponding breadcrumb trails in the link target.)

Reviewer instructions & questions

@c-joly & @bstanciulescu, your review will be checklist based. Each of you will have a separate checklist that you should update when carrying out your review.
First of all you need to run this command in a separate comment to create the checklist:

@editorialbot generate my checklist

The reviewer guidelines are available here: https://joss.readthedocs.io/en/latest/reviewer_guidelines.html. Any questions/concerns please let @boisgera know.

✨ Please start on your review when you are able, and be sure to complete your review in the next six weeks, at the very latest ✨

Checklists

📝 Checklist for @c-joly

📝 Checklist for @bstanciulescu

[editorialbot]

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[editorialbot]

Software report:

github.com/AlDanial/cloc v 1.90  T=1.40 s (822.4 files/s, 415724.1 lines/s)
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Language                     files          blank        comment           code
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
HTML                           296         206671              7         190230
XML                            313           1207           2803          91984
Markdown                       297          27955              1          27897
C++                             80           1938            884           9577
JavaScript                      36           1017           1334           4921
C/C++ Header                    59            958            452           3900
Python                          32            724            661           3104
XSD                              4            131             14           1636
GLSL                            10            128             77            578
YAML                             5             18              9            381
Bourne Shell                     6             51             23            313
TeX                              1             35              0            289
CMake                            8             56            130            205
XSLT                             1              0              5             10
sed                              1              0              2              4
CSS                              2              0              0              2
JSON                             1              0              0              1
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
SUM:                          1152         240889           6402         335032
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Commit count by author:

   907	Konstantinos Chatzilygeroudis
   222	Jean-Baptiste Mouret
    61	DionisTotsila
    18	Vaios Papaspyros
    14	Ivan Bergonzani
    14	dinies
     7	Antoine Cully
     6	Dorian Goepp
     6	eloise
     6	kostastsing
     5	DALIN Eloise
     5	aneoshun
     3	Dionis Totsila
     3	Eloise Dalin
     3	eloise dalin
     3	jspitz
     2	Aneoshun
     2	Matthias Mayr
     2	Olivier Rochel
     2	Pierre Desreumaux
     1	Erick Kramer
     1	Vassilis Vassiliades
     1	artificialsimon
     1	itUserName
     1	kounelisagis

[editorialbot]

Paper file info:

📄 Wordcount for paper.md is 2323

✅ The paper includes a Statement of need section

[editorialbot]

License info:

✅ License found: BSD 2-Clause "Simplified" License (Valid open source OSI approved license)

[editorialbot]

👉📄 Download article proof 📄 View article proof on GitHub 📄 👈

[editorialbot]

Reference check summary (note 'MISSING' DOIs are suggestions that need verification):

OK DOIs

- None

MISSING DOIs

- No DOI given, and none found for title: Black-box data-efficient policy search for robotic...
- 10.1109/iros.2004.1389727 may be a valid DOI for title: Design and use paradigms for gazebo, an open-sourc...
- No DOI given, and none found for title: Gazebo Simulator
- 10.1109/iros.2012.6386109 may be a valid DOI for title: Mujoco: A physics engine for model-based control
- No DOI given, and none found for title: PyBullet, a Python module for physics simulation f...
- No DOI given, and none found for title: Open Dynamics Engine
- 10.21105/joss.00500 may be a valid DOI for title: Dart: Dynamic animation and robotics toolkit
- 10.1126/scirobotics.aau5872 may be a valid DOI for title: Learning agile and dynamic motor skills for legged...
- No DOI given, and none found for title: Learning quadrupedal locomotion over challenging t...
- 10.1109/iros.2017.8202133 may be a valid DOI for title: Domain randomization for transferring deep neural ...
- No DOI given, and none found for title: A review of robot learning for manipulation: Chall...
- 10.1007/s10846-017-0468-y may be a valid DOI for title: Survey of model-based reinforcement learning: Appl...
- No DOI given, and none found for title: Recent advances in robot learning from demonstrati...
- 10.1109/tro.2019.2958211 may be a valid DOI for title: A survey on policy search algorithms for learning ...
- 10.1109/tevc.2017.2735550 may be a valid DOI for title: Using centroidal voronoi tessellations to scale up...
- 10.1016/j.robot.2017.11.010 may be a valid DOI for title: Reset-free trial-and-error learning for robot dama...
- No DOI given, and none found for title: 20 years of reality gap: a few thoughts about simu...
- 10.1109/icra.2018.8463197 may be a valid DOI for title: Bayesian optimization with automatic prior selecti...
- 10.1109/icra.2018.8461083 may be a valid DOI for title: Using parameterized black-box priors to scale up m...
- 10.1609/aaai.v32i1.11687 may be a valid DOI for title: Alternating optimisation and quadrature for robust...
- No DOI given, and none found for title: Multi-objective model-based policy search for data...
- 10.1109/robio55434.2022.10011996 may be a valid DOI for title: Skill-based multi-objective reinforcement learning...
- 10.1109/iros51168.2021.9636292 may be a valid DOI for title: Learning of parameters in behavior trees for movem...
- 10.1109/case49997.2022.9926713 may be a valid DOI for title: Learning skill-based industrial robot tasks with u...
- 10.1145/3512290.3528751 may be a valid DOI for title: Hierarchical quality-diversity for online damage r...
- No DOI given, and none found for title: Safety-aware robot damage recovery using constrain...
- No DOI given, and none found for title: Combining planning, reasoning and reinforcement le...
- 10.1145/3596912 may be a valid DOI for title: Online damage recovery for physical robots with hi...
- No DOI given, and none found for title: Towards semi-episodic learning for robot damage re...
- 10.1109/tsmc.2023.3262954 may be a valid DOI for title: Self-correcting quadratic programming-based robot ...
- 10.3389/frobt.2022.974537 may be a valid DOI for title: Behavior policy learning: Learning multi-stage tas...
- 10.1109/iisa59645.2023.10345937 may be a valid DOI for title: Evolving Dynamic Locomotion Policies in Minutes
- 10.1109/iisa59645.2023.10345879 may be a valid DOI for title: Effective Skill Learning via Autonomous Goal Repre...
- No DOI given, and none found for title: End-to-End Stable Imitation Learning via Autonomou...
- No DOI given, and none found for title: Robust reinforcement learning with Bayesian optimi...
- 10.1109/humanoids.2017.8246947 may be a valid DOI for title: TALOS: A new humanoid research platform targeted f...

INVALID DOIs

- None

[c-joly]

Review checklist for @c-joly

Conflict of interest

• I confirm that I have read the JOSS conflict of interest (COI) policy and that: I have no COIs with reviewing this work or that any perceived COIs have been waived by JOSS for the purpose of this review.

Code of Conduct

• I confirm that I read and will adhere to the JOSS code of conduct.

General checks

• Repository: Is the source code for this software available at the https://github.com/NOSALRO/robot_dart?
• License: Does the repository contain a plain-text LICENSE or COPYING file with the contents of an OSI approved software license?
• Contribution and authorship: Has the submitting author (@costashatz) made major contributions to the software? Does the full list of paper authors seem appropriate and complete?
• Substantial scholarly effort: Does this submission meet the scope eligibility described in the JOSS guidelines
• Data sharing: If the paper contains original data, data are accessible to the reviewers. If the paper contains no original data, please check this item.
• Reproducibility: If the paper contains original results, results are entirely reproducible by reviewers. If the paper contains no original results, please check this item.
• Human and animal research: If the paper contains original data research on humans subjects or animals, does it comply with JOSS's human participants research policy and/or animal research policy? If the paper contains no such data, please check this item.

Functionality

• Installation: Does installation proceed as outlined in the documentation?
• Functionality: Have the functional claims of the software been confirmed?
• Performance: If there are any performance claims of the software, have they been confirmed? (If there are no claims, please check off this item.)

Documentation

• A statement of need: Do the authors clearly state what problems the software is designed to solve and who the target audience is?
• Installation instructions: Is there a clearly-stated list of dependencies? Ideally these should be handled with an automated package management solution.
• Example usage: Do the authors include examples of how to use the software (ideally to solve real-world analysis problems).
• Functionality documentation: Is the core functionality of the software documented to a satisfactory level (e.g., API method documentation)?
• Automated tests: Are there automated tests or manual steps described so that the functionality of the software can be verified?
• Community guidelines: Are there clear guidelines for third parties wishing to 1) Contribute to the software 2) Report issues or problems with the software 3) Seek support

Software paper

• Summary: Has a clear description of the high-level functionality and purpose of the software for a diverse, non-specialist audience been provided?
• A statement of need: Does the paper have a section titled 'Statement of need' that clearly states what problems the software is designed to solve, who the target audience is, and its relation to other work?
• State of the field: Do the authors describe how this software compares to other commonly-used packages?
• Quality of writing: Is the paper well written (i.e., it does not require editing for structure, language, or writing quality)?
• References: Is the list of references complete, and is everything cited appropriately that should be cited (e.g., papers, datasets, software)? Do references in the text use the proper citation syntax?

[bstanciulescu]

Review checklist for @bstanciulescu

Conflict of interest

• I confirm that I have read the JOSS conflict of interest (COI) policy and that: I have no COIs with reviewing this work or that any perceived COIs have been waived by JOSS for the purpose of this review.

Code of Conduct

• I confirm that I read and will adhere to the JOSS code of conduct.

General checks

• Repository: Is the source code for this software available at the https://github.com/NOSALRO/robot_dart?
• License: Does the repository contain a plain-text LICENSE or COPYING file with the contents of an OSI approved software license?
• Contribution and authorship: Has the submitting author (@costashatz) made major contributions to the software? Does the full list of paper authors seem appropriate and complete?
• Substantial scholarly effort: Does this submission meet the scope eligibility described in the JOSS guidelines
• Data sharing: If the paper contains original data, data are accessible to the reviewers. If the paper contains no original data, please check this item.
• Reproducibility: If the paper contains original results, results are entirely reproducible by reviewers. If the paper contains no original results, please check this item.
• Human and animal research: If the paper contains original data research on humans subjects or animals, does it comply with JOSS's human participants research policy and/or animal research policy? If the paper contains no such data, please check this item.

Functionality

• Installation: Does installation proceed as outlined in the documentation?
• Functionality: Have the functional claims of the software been confirmed?
• Performance: If there are any performance claims of the software, have they been confirmed? (If there are no claims, please check off this item.)

Documentation

• A statement of need: Do the authors clearly state what problems the software is designed to solve and who the target audience is?
• Installation instructions: Is there a clearly-stated list of dependencies? Ideally these should be handled with an automated package management solution.
• Example usage: Do the authors include examples of how to use the software (ideally to solve real-world analysis problems).
• Functionality documentation: Is the core functionality of the software documented to a satisfactory level (e.g., API method documentation)?
• Automated tests: Are there automated tests or manual steps described so that the functionality of the software can be verified?
• Community guidelines: Are there clear guidelines for third parties wishing to 1) Contribute to the software 2) Report issues or problems with the software 3) Seek support

Software paper

• Summary: Has a clear description of the high-level functionality and purpose of the software for a diverse, non-specialist audience been provided?
• A statement of need: Does the paper have a section titled 'Statement of need' that clearly states what problems the software is designed to solve, who the target audience is, and its relation to other work?
• State of the field: Do the authors describe how this software compares to other commonly-used packages?
• Quality of writing: Is the paper well written (i.e., it does not require editing for structure, language, or writing quality)?
• References: Is the list of references complete, and is everything cited appropriately that should be cited (e.g., papers, datasets, software)? Do references in the text use the proper citation syntax?

[costashatz]

@boisgera @c-joly @bstanciulescu thank you for handling the review of our submission! We have tried to update our text such that it's closer to the 1000 words limit (we are still slightly over, ~1200, but we would need to completely re-write the text to reduce it more). Let us know if this is OK with the journal's policies or if we need to further adapt.

@editorialbot generate pdf

[boisgera]

@editorialbot generate pdf

[editorialbot]

👉📄 Download article proof 📄 View article proof on GitHub 📄 👈

[boisgera]

@boisgera @c-joly @bstanciulescu thank you for handling the review of our submission! We have tried to update our text such that it's closer to the 1000 words limit (we are still slightly over, ~1200, but we would need to completely re-write the text to reduce it more). Let us know if this is OK with the journal's policies or if we need to further adapt.

@costashatz Thanks for this effort! Since your paper is not "significantly longer than 1000 words" anymore, this is fine.

[boisgera]

Hi @bstanciulescu! Since you usually work with Windows, could you try to install RobotDART on Ubuntu 22.04 with WSL and report what you get please? AFAICT this is not explicitly supported so you may run into issues but OTOH that would be really nice to know that it's a workable solution for Windows users.

[boisgera]

Hi @bstanciulescu! Since you usually work with Windows, could you try to install RobotDART on Ubuntu 22.04 with WSL and report what you get please? AFAICT this is not explicitly supported so you may run into issues but OTOH that would be really nice to know that it's a workable solution for Windows users.

Great news! @bstanciulescu told me (in a private communication) that he successfully managed to install and run RoboDart on WSL, without any fiddling! I asked him to open an issue to report his experience so that this information can be added to the project documentation.

[c-joly]

Hi @boisgera, @costashatz, @bstanciulescu, for your information, I will be out of office from July 16th to August 18th included. So, do not expect new inputs from me during that period 😃✈️🏖️

[costashatz]

Hi, for your information, I will be out of office from July 16th to August 18th included. So, do not expect new inputs from me during that period 😃✈️🏖️

@c-joly thanks a lot for your feedback and comments. They are highly appreciated. I've been swamped with the exam period and some paper deadlines. I should have answered to most of your issues/comments by the time you come back. Have fun and thanks again!