Swarm robotics: a review from the swarm engineering perspective <s> Microscopic models <s> Robotic Development Environments (RDEs) have come to play an increasingly important role in robotics research in general, and for the development of architectures for mobile robots in particular. Yet, no systematic evaluation of available RDEs has been performed; establishing a comprehensive list of evaluation criteria targeted at robotics applications is desirable that can subsequently be used to compare their strengths and weaknesses. Moreover, there are no practical evaluations of the usability and impact of a large selection of RDEs that provides researchers with the information necessary to select an RDE most suited to their needs, nor identifies trends in RDE research that suggest directions for future RDE development. ::: ::: This survey addresses the above by selecting and describing nine open source, freely available RDEs for mobile robots, evaluating and comparing them from various points of view. First, based on previous work concerning agent systems, a conceptual framework of four broad categories is established, encompassing the characteristics and capabilities that an RDE supports. Then, a practical evaluation of RDE usability in designing, implementing, and executing robot architectures is presented. Finally, the impact of specific RDEs on the field of robotics is addressed by providing a list of published applications and research projects that give concrete examples of areas in which systems have been used. The comprehensive evaluation and comparison of the nine RDEs concludes with suggestions of how to use the results of this survey and a brief discussion of future trends in RDE design. <s> BIB001 </s> Swarm robotics: a review from the swarm engineering perspective <s> Microscopic models <s> Stage is a C++ software library that simulates multiple mobile robots. Stage version 2, as the simulation backend for the Player/Stage system, may be the most commonly used robot simulator in research and university teaching today. Development of Stage version 3 has focused on improving scalability, usability, and portability. This paper examines Stage’s scalability. <s> BIB002 </s> Swarm robotics: a review from the swarm engineering perspective <s> Microscopic models <s> Simulation is one of the most important Tools for the development of soft- and hardware for autonomous robots. Depending on the purpose of the simulation different levels of abstraction are required for the simulation of a robot's motion and sensors as well as its interaction with the environment. The present thesis discusses the simulation of autonomous robots with different levels of abstraction. Methods are derived which allow the simultaneous simulation of multiple robots within the same simulation using different levels of abstraction, thus allowing to use the simulation for differing purposes. Besides methods for the simulation of a robot's motion and sensors on different levels of abstraction, methods for adaptable modeling of the robots and validation of the simulation are discussed. The developed methodology is the base for the "Multi-Robot-Simulation-Framework". This framework is the foundation for several simulations of wheeled, humanoid and four-legged robots which are described as examples in this thesis. <s> BIB003 </s> Swarm robotics: a review from the swarm engineering perspective <s> Microscopic models <s> We present a novel multi-robot simulator named ARGoS. ARGoS is designed to simulate complex experiments involving large swarms of robots of different types. ARGoS is the first multi-robot simulator that is at the same time both efficient (fast performance with many robots) and flexible (highly customizable for specific experiments). Novel design choices in ARGoS have enabled this breakthrough. First, in ARGoS, it is possible to partition the simulated space into multiple sub-spaces, managed by different physics engines running in parallel. Second, ARGoS’ architecture is multi-threaded, thus designed to optimize the usage of modern multi-core CPUs. Finally, the architecture of ARGoS is highly modular, enabling easy addition of custom features and appropriate allocation of computational resources. We assess the efficiency of ARGoS and showcase its flexibility with targeted experiments. Experimental results demonstrate that simulation run-time increases linearly with the number of robots. A 2D-dynamics simulation of 10,000 e-puck robots can be performed in 60 % of the time taken by the corresponding real-world experiment. We show how ARGoS can be extended to suit the needs of an experiment in which custom functionality is necessary to achieve sufficient simulation accuracy. ARGoS is open source software licensed under GPL3 and is downloadable free of charge. <s> BIB004
Microscopic models take into account each robot individually, analyzing both robot-to-robot and robot-to-environment interactions. The level of detail considered in microscopic models can vary greatly and influences the model and the results that can be obtained. In the swarm robotics field, many models have been developed with different levels of abstraction: the simplest models consider the robots as point-masses; intermediate complexity models consider 2D worlds with kinematic physics; more complex models consider 3D worlds with dynamic physics where the details of each sensor and actuator are modeled. For an analysis of the different levels of abstraction see BIB003 . In microscopic models, the behavior of each individual robot is also explicitly modeled. These individualbehavior models are mainly used for design purposes. As such they have already been presented in Sect. 2.1.1 of our review. Microscopic models in which the elements composing a system are simulated with the use of a computer are traditionally called simulations. Simulations are among the most used tools to analyze and validate swarm robotics systems. The vast majority of the works presented in Sect. 3 have been analyzed using simulators. Simulators for swarm robotics systems have many characteristics in common with simulators for other mobile robotics systems. However, a unique feature of swarm robotics is the presence of a large number of robots. Unfortunately, scalability with respect to the number of robots is not the main concern for the vast majority of multi-robot simulators. BIB002 proposed a benchmark to study scalability in multi-robot simulators and applied it to the Stage simulator. BIB004 developed a simulator for swarm robotics by focusing explicitly on the scalability issue which was able to simulate 10 5 robots in real time. For a survey of various simulation platforms in robotics see BIB001 .