ikaros

Ikaros is an open framework for system-level brain modeling and real-time robot control. Ikaros supports the design and implementation of large-scale computation models using a flow programming paradigm.

More than 100 persons contributed to the code base of earlier versions and over 100 scientific publications report on work that has used Ikaros for simulations or robot control.

Ikaros 2 is described in the article Ikaros: A framework for controlling robots with system-level brain models.

Version 3 is completely rewritten in modern C++ and includes a number of new features.

Up to date information is available in the wiki.

Ikaros Status - 10 February, 2026

| Component | State | Comments | | ----|----|----| | CMake |<div style="color:green">🟢 OK | | | Matrices |<div style="color:green">🟢 OK | not optimized | | Ranges |<div style="color:green">🟢 OK | no enumerated ranges | | Dictionary |<div style="color:green">🟢 OK | | | Options |<div style="color:green">🟢 OK | | Maths |<div style="color:#c60">🟡 Partial | only essential functions | | Parameters |<div style="color:green">🟢 OK | | | Expressions |<div style="color:green">🟢 OK | | | XML |<div style="color:green">🟢 OK | | | Kernel |<div style="color:green">🟢 OK | | Exception handling |<div style="color:green">🟢 OK | | | Shared dict |<div style="color:green">🟢 OK | | | Scheduler |<div style="color:#green">🟢 OK | | | Task sorting |<div style="color:green">🟢 OK | | | Real time |<div style="color:green">🟢 OK | | | SetSizes | <div style="color:green">🟢 OK | | Input resizing |<div style="color:green">🟢 OK | | | | Delays |<div style="color:#green">🟢 OK | | | WebUI |<div style="color:green">🟢 OK | | | API |<div style="color:green">🟢 OK | | | BrainStudio |<div style="color:green">🟢 OK | brain template missing | | Message queue |<div style="color:green">🟢 OK | | | Log |<div style="color:green">🟢 OK | | | Editing |<div style="color:green">🟢 OK | | | Sockets |<div style="color:green">🟢 OK | | | UtilityModules |<div style="color:#c60">🟡 Partial | 47 modules | | Named Dimensions |<div style="color:green">🟢 OK | |

Basic Start-up Parameters

usage: ikaros [options] [variable=value] [filename]

        Command line options:

        -S (start):  start-up automatically without waiting for commands from WebUI
        -b (batch_mode): start automatically and quit when execution terminates
        -d (tick_duration): duration of each tick
        -h (help): list command line options [true]
        -r (real_time): run in real-time mode
        -s (stop): stop Ikaros after this tick [-1]
        -w (webui_port): port for ikaros WebUI [8000]
        -x: activate experimental features

    filename :   ikg-file to load

All parameters can be set in the root element of the ikg-file as well.