Sensor simulation in Computer Aided Robotics (CAR) can enhance the capabilities of such systems to enable off-line generation of programmes for sensor driven robots. However, such sensor simulation is not commonly supported in current computer aided robotic environments. A generic sensor object model for the simulation of sensors in graphical environments is described in this paper. Such a model can be used to simulate a variety of sensors, for example photoelectric, proximity and ultrasonic sensors. Tests results presented here show that this generic sensor model can be customised to emulate the characteristics of the real sensors. The preliminary findings from the first off-line trained mobile robot are presented. The results indicate that sensor simulation within CARs can be used to train robots to adapt to changing environments.