Paper Info
Title
ARGoS: a modular, parallel, multi-engine simulator for multi-robot systems.
Abstract
Abstract 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.
Year
DOI
Venue
2012
10.1007/s11721-012-0072-5
Swarm intelligence
Keywords
Field
DocType
Simulation,Swarm robotics,Multi-robot systems,High-performance,ARGoS
Robotic systems,Architecture,Simulation,Computer science,Physics engine,Modular design,Robot,Open source software,Swarm robotics,Embedded system
Journal
Volume
Issue
ISSN
6
4
1935-3820
Citations 
PageRank 
References 
100
3.70
17
Authors
13
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Carlo Pinciroli141930.54
Vito Trianni277851.87
Rehan O'Grady331019.79
Giovanni Pini421310.55
Arne Brutschy525714.19
Manuele Brambilla632515.84
Nithin Mathews71368.24
Eliseo Ferrante844224.13
Gianni Di Caro92255173.70
Frederick Ducatelle1081340.43
Mauro Birattari112021146.61
Luca Maria Gambardella127926726.40
Marco Dorigo13140311211.61