Swarm Simulator

About

This package provides a simulation environment for swarm robotics.

Usage

To set up required packages, run pip install -r requirements.in

Each simulation may take three input files: the user file, the configuration file, and the initialization file

• The user file is the robot program file
• The configuration file stores parameters for the simulation
• The initialization file initializes robot positions in the swarm
  • This file is optional
  • Accepted file formats: .py or .csv (where columns correspond to a_ids, x, y, and theta in order)

To run the simulator:

1. Move all user, configuration, and intialization files into the user directory
2. Navigate to the sim_pkg directory
3. Run python coachbot_simulator.py -b <batchfile> (or python coachbot_simulator.py -u <userfile> -c <configfile> -i <initfile> if you would like to run a standalone simulation)
   • <batchfile> is the batch file, which specifies the number of simulations to run ("NUM_RUNS") and the input files to use for each simulation
   • Default input files can be set in the batch file, under "DEFAULT_USER", "DEFAULT_CONFIG", and "DEFAULT_INIT" respectively
     • To exclude the initialization file by default, simply omit "DEFAULT_INIT"
   • The default number of trials for each simulation can be set under "DEFAULT_TRIALS"
   • Files and trial numbers for specific runs can also be set in the batch file
     • e.g. "USER_i" specifies the userfile for the i-th simulation

To generate a histogram of recorded collision counts, run python analyze.py -f <filename>

• <filename> is the name for the log file containing data about collisions

An example user program firefly.py, associated configuration and initialization files config.json and init_pose.py, and batch file firefly_batch.json are provided in the user directory of this repository -- this example can be viewed by running python coachbot_simulator.py -b firefly_batch.json

Configuration parameters

The parameters that can be set in a configuration file are:

1. NUMBER_OF_ROBOTS (int): number of robots to simulate

2. COMM_RANGE (float): radius of communication for each robot (meters)

3. PACKET_SUCCESS_PERC (float): success rate of sending messages (between 0 and 1)

4. NUM_OF_MSGS (int): maximum number of messages each robot can keep in its message buffer

5. MSG_SIZE (int): maximum size of each message (bytes)

6. MSG_TYPE (int): set the type of messages to string (0) or bytes (1)

7. TIME_ASYNC (int): set time synchronous (0) or asynchronous (1) initialization for robots

8. REAL_TIME_FACTOR (float): maximum allowed real time factor (ratio of simulated time to actual time)

9. SIM_TIME_STEP (float): set the (simulation) time step (how much time each iteration of the simulation loop should model)

10. SIM_TIME (float): set the maximum allowed (simulation) time for the simulation to run

11. WIDTH (float): width (height) of arena (meters)

12. LENGTH (float): length of the arena (meters)

13. USE_VIS (int): set whether (1) or not (0) to use the simulator GUI

14. (optional) EXTRA (list): set parameters for robot creation and destruction

    This simulator allows for robots to be added to the environment one at a time, at a specified time interval. Robots can also be destroyed once they reach a specified circular area.

    The parameters contained in this field are (in order): initial number of robots (int), x coordinate for robot creation (float), y coordinate for robot creation (float), time interval for robot creation (float), x coordinate for robot destruction (float), y coordinate for robot destruction (float), radius for area of robot destruction (float), indicator for whether or not to reuse past robot ids for new robot creation (int, 1 or 0).

Code structure

Program examples

Firefly algorithm

Flocking algorithm with collision

License

MIT