[vonmoltke]

I have significant experience in faking sensor data (specifically radar), and can tell you from it that fake sensor data is terrible. There is way too much going on in the real world to accurately create sensor data without actually recording sensor data. That is, you can manufacture the situation for the sensor to capture much more effectively than you can manufacture the data from a model.

Even pseudo-faking like we were trying to do, wherein as generated signal is injected into actual, recorded background noise, is fraught with problems. Anybody who tries to develop a control system based solely on such data is in for a rude awakening when they try it for real for the first time.