{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,5,4]],"date-time":"2026-05-04T23:29:40Z","timestamp":1777937380812,"version":"3.51.4"},"reference-count":31,"publisher":"Springer Science and Business Media LLC","issue":"4","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2023,9,21]],"date-time":"2023-09-21T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1695254400000},"content-version":"tdm","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0"},{"start":{"date-parts":[[2023,9,21]],"date-time":"2023-09-21T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1695254400000},"content-version":"vor","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by\/4.0"}],"funder":[{"name":"Open access funding provided by Aalborg University Library."}],"content-domain":{"domain":["link.springer.com"],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["Artif Life Robotics"],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2023,11]]},"abstract":"<jats:title>Abstract<\/jats:title><jats:p>With the aim of allowing the efficient and realistic simulation of swarm algorithms for exploration and coverage, we present the tool Multi-Agent Exploration Simulator (MAES), which is an open-source physics-based discrete step multi-robot simulator. MAES features movement in a continuous 2D space, realistic physics based on the Unity framework, advanced visualization techniques such as heatmaps, custom wireless signal degradation, both randomly generated and custom user-provided maps, and a ROS (Robot Operating System) interface. This latter characteristic could allow to port the simulated algorithms to real-world robots. We present performance tests, conducted with rather modest hardware, showing that MAES is able to simulate up to 5 robots in ROSMode (using the ROS integration) and up to 120 robots in UnityMode (development performed directly into the C# Unity Editor). A usability test was conducted which hinted that the target audience of robotics researchers and developers is able to quickly install, setup, and use MAES for implementing simple robot logic.<\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1007\/s10015-023-00895-7","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2023,9,29]],"date-time":"2023-09-29T12:02:38Z","timestamp":1695988958000},"page":"757-770","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1007\/springer_crossmark_policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":6,"title":["MAES: a ROS 2-compatible simulation tool for exploration and coverage algorithms"],"prefix":"10.1007","volume":"28","author":[{"given":"Malte Z.","family":"Andreasen","sequence":"first","affiliation":[]},{"given":"Philip I.","family":"Holler","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]},{"given":"Magnus K.","family":"Jensen","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]},{"given":"Michele","family":"Albano","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]}],"member":"297","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2023,9,21]]},"reference":[{"key":"895_CR1","unstructured":"ARGoS (2022) Argos - large-scale robot simulations. https:\/\/www.argos-sim.info. Accessed 29 Aug 2023"},{"key":"895_CR2","unstructured":"Open Robotics (2022a) Gazebo - simulate before you build. https:\/\/gazebosim.org\/home. Accessed 29 Aug 2023"},{"issue":"2","key":"895_CR3","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","first-page":"143","DOI":"10.1007\/s10472-009-9121-1","volume":"52","author":"Agmon Noa","year":"2008","unstructured":"Agmon N,  Hazon N,  Gal KA (2008) The giving tree: constructing trees for efficient offline and online multi-robot coverage. Annals Mathemat Artif Intell 52(2):143\u2013168","journal-title":"Annals Mathemat Artif Intell"},{"issue":"7","key":"895_CR4","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"1152","DOI":"10.1109\/JPROC.2021.3072740","volume":"109","author":"Marco Dorigo","year":"2021","unstructured":"Dorigo M,  Guy T,  Vito T (2021) Swarm robotics: past, present, and future [point of view]. Proc IEEE 109(7):1152\u20131165","journal-title":"Proc IEEE"},{"key":"895_CR5","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/j.swevo.2020.100762","volume":"60","author":"S Melanie","year":"2021","unstructured":"Schranz M, Di Caro GA, Thomas S, Wilfried E, Farshad A, Ahmet \u015e, Micha S (2021) Swarm intelligence and cyber-physical systems: concepts, challenges and future trends. Swarm Evolut Comput 60:100762","journal-title":"Swarm Evolut Comput"},{"key":"895_CR6","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","unstructured":"Andreasen M, Holler P, Jensen M, Albano Mi (2022a) Comparison of online exploration and coverage algorithms in continuous space. In: Proceedings of the 14th International Conference on Agents and Artificial Intelligence - Volume 1: SDMIS,, pages 527\u2013537. INSTICC, SciTePress, ISBN 978-989-758-547-0. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.5220\/0010975900003116","DOI":"10.5220\/0010975900003116"},{"key":"895_CR7","unstructured":"Unity Technologies (2021) Unity Real-Time Development Platform | 3D, 2D VR & AR Engine. https:\/\/unity.com\/. Accessed 29 Aug 2023"},{"key":"895_CR8","unstructured":"Open Robotics (2022b) Ros - robot operating system. https:\/\/www.ros.org. Accessed 29 Aug 2023"},{"key":"895_CR9","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Cheraghi AR, Abdelgalil A, Graffi K (2020) Universal 2-dimensional terrain marking for autonomous robot swarms. In: 2020 5th Asia-Pacific Conference on Intelligent Robot Systems (ACIRS), pages 24\u201332. IEEE","DOI":"10.1109\/ACIRS49895.2020.9162613"},{"key":"895_CR10","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Albani D, Manoni T, Arik A, Nardi D, Trianni V (2019) Field coverage for weed mapping: toward experiments with a uav swarm. In International Conference on Bio-inspired Information and Communication, pages 132\u2013146. Springer","DOI":"10.1007\/978-3-030-24202-2_10"},{"issue":"3","key":"895_CR11","first-page":"181","volume":"8","author":"Y Kambayashi","year":"2009","unstructured":"Kambayashi Y, Ugajin M, Sato O, Tsujimura Y, Yamachi H, Takimoto M, Yamamoto H (2009) Integrating ant colony clustering method to a multi-robot system using mobile agents. Ind Eng Manag Syst 8(3):181\u2013193","journal-title":"Ind Eng Manag Syst"},{"key":"895_CR12","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Oikawa R, Takimoto M, Kambayashi Y (2015) Distributed formation control for swarm robots using mobile agents. In: 2015 IEEE 10th Jubilee International Symposium on Applied Computational Intelligence and Informatics, pages 111\u2013116. IEEE","DOI":"10.1109\/SACI.2015.7208181"},{"key":"895_CR13","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"23","DOI":"10.3389\/frobt.2021.618268","volume":"8","author":"M Kegeleirs","year":"2021","unstructured":"Kegeleirs M, Grisetti G, Birattari M (2021) Swarm slam: challenges and perspectives. Front Robot AI 8:23","journal-title":"Front Robot AI"},{"key":"895_CR14","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Gonzalez E, Gerlein E (2009) Bsa-cm: A multi-robot coverage algorithm. In: 2009 IEEE\/WIC\/ACM International Joint Conference on Web Intelligence and Intelligent Agent Technology, volume\u00a02, pages 383\u2013386. IEEE","DOI":"10.1109\/WI-IAT.2009.182"},{"key":"895_CR15","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Gautam A, Richhariya A, Shekhawat VS, Mohan S (2018) Experimental evaluation of multi-robot online terrain coverage approach. In: 2018 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Biomimetics (ROBIO), pages 1183\u20131189, 10.1109\/ROBIO.2018.8665196","DOI":"10.1109\/ROBIO.2018.8665196"},{"key":"895_CR16","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Gautam A, Soni A, Singh\u00a0SV, Mohan S (2021) Multi-robot online terrain coverage under communication range restrictions - an empirical study. In: 2021 IEEE 17th International Conference on Automation Science and Engineering (CASE), pages 1862\u20131869, 10.1109\/CASE49439.2021.9551390","DOI":"10.1109\/CASE49439.2021.9551390"},{"key":"895_CR17","unstructured":"Player\/Stage (2022) The player project. http:\/\/playerstage.sourceforge.net"},{"key":"895_CR18","unstructured":"NVIDIA (2022) Nvidia isaac sim. https:\/\/developer.nvidia.com\/isaac-sim"},{"key":"895_CR19","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Pitonakova L, Giuliani M, Pipe A, Winfield A (2018) Feature and performance comparison of the v-rep, gazebo and argos robot simulators. In: Annual Conference Towards Autonomous Robotic Systems, pages 357\u2013368. Springer","DOI":"10.1007\/978-3-319-96728-8_30"},{"issue":"4","key":"895_CR20","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"80","DOI":"10.1007\/s10846-022-01766-2","volume":"106","author":"J Platt","year":"2022","unstructured":"Platt J, Ricks K (2022) Comparative analysis of ros-unity3d and ros-gazebo for mobile ground robot simulation. J Intell Robotic Syst 106(4):80","journal-title":"J Intell Robotic Syst"},{"key":"895_CR21","unstructured":"Open Robotics (2022c) Powering the world\u2019s robots. https:\/\/www.openrobotics.org"},{"issue":"3","key":"895_CR22","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"761","DOI":"10.1007\/s10846-018-0866-9","volume":"94","author":"A Farshad","year":"2019","unstructured":"Farshad A, Jose E, Benjamin B, West A,  Watson S, Barry L (2019) Mona: an affordable open-source mobile robot for education and research. J Intell Robot Syst 94(3):761\u2013775. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1007\/s10846-018-0866-9","journal-title":"J Intell Robot Syst"},{"key":"895_CR23","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Fu James GM, Bandyopadhyay T, Ang MH (2009) Local voronoi decomposition for multi-agent task allocation. In: 2009 IEEE International Conference on Robotics and Automation, 1935\u20131940, 10.1109\/ROBOT.2009.5152829","DOI":"10.1109\/ROBOT.2009.5152829"},{"key":"895_CR24","unstructured":"Andreasen MZ, JensenMagnus\u00a0K, Holler PI (2023) Maes. https:\/\/github.com\/DEIS-Tools\/MAES. Accessed 29 Aug 2023"},{"key":"895_CR25","unstructured":"Open Robotics (2022d) Ros - robot operating system. https:\/\/docs.ros.org\/en\/galactic\/Releases.html. Accessed 29 Aug 2023"},{"key":"895_CR26","unstructured":"Unity-Technologies (2022a) Ros tcp connector. https:\/\/github.com\/Unity-Technologies\/ROS-TCP-Connector"},{"key":"895_CR27","unstructured":"Unity-Technologies (2022b) Ros tcp endpoint. https:\/\/github.com\/Unity-Technologies\/ROS-TCP-Endpoint"},{"key":"895_CR28","doi-asserted-by":"crossref","unstructured":"Macenski S, Mart\u00edn F, White R, Gin\u00e9s\u00a0CJ (2020) The marathon 2: A navigation system. In: 2020 IEEE\/RSJ International Conference on Intelligent Robots and Systems (IROS). URL https:\/\/github.com\/ros-planning\/navigation2","DOI":"10.1109\/IROS45743.2020.9341207"},{"issue":"61","key":"895_CR29","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","first-page":"2783","DOI":"10.21105\/joss.02783","volume":"6","author":"Macenski Steve","year":"2021","unstructured":"Steve M, Ivona J (2021) Slam toolbox: Slam for the dynamic world. J Open Source Soft 6(61):2783. https:\/\/doi.org\/10.21105\/joss.02783","journal-title":"J Open Source Soft"},{"key":"895_CR30","unstructured":"Andreasen M, Holler P, Jensen M (2022b) Maes 2.0: A ros compatible simulation tool for multi robot exploration and coverage. Master\u2019s thesis, Aalborg University. available online at https:\/\/projekter.aau.dk\/projekter\/en\/studentthesis\/maes-20-a-ros-compatible-simulation-tool-for-multi-robot-exploration-and-coverage(03d7a67b-05d4-470e-882d-a5a4da1e1e75).html"},{"key":"895_CR31","unstructured":"Unity-Technologies (2022c) Unity dots. https:\/\/unity.com\/dots. Accessed 29 Aug 2023"}],"container-title":["Artificial Life and Robotics"],"original-title":[],"language":"en","link":[{"URL":"https:\/\/link.springer.com\/content\/pdf\/10.1007\/s10015-023-00895-7.pdf","content-type":"application\/pdf","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"text-mining"},{"URL":"https:\/\/link.springer.com\/article\/10.1007\/s10015-023-00895-7\/fulltext.html","content-type":"text\/html","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"text-mining"},{"URL":"https:\/\/link.springer.com\/content\/pdf\/10.1007\/s10015-023-00895-7.pdf","content-type":"application\/pdf","content-version":"vor","intended-application":"similarity-checking"}],"deposited":{"date-parts":[[2023,11,4]],"date-time":"2023-11-04T08:07:40Z","timestamp":1699085260000},"score":1,"resource":{"primary":{"URL":"https:\/\/link.springer.com\/10.1007\/s10015-023-00895-7"}},"subtitle":[],"short-title":[],"issued":{"date-parts":[[2023,9,21]]},"references-count":31,"journal-issue":{"issue":"4","published-print":{"date-parts":[[2023,11]]}},"alternative-id":["895"],"URL":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1007\/s10015-023-00895-7","relation":{},"ISSN":["1433-5298","1614-7456"],"issn-type":[{"value":"1433-5298","type":"print"},{"value":"1614-7456","type":"electronic"}],"subject":[],"published":{"date-parts":[[2023,9,21]]},"assertion":[{"value":"26 March 2023","order":1,"name":"received","label":"Received","group":{"name":"ArticleHistory","label":"Article History"}},{"value":"14 July 2023","order":2,"name":"accepted","label":"Accepted","group":{"name":"ArticleHistory","label":"Article History"}},{"value":"21 September 2023","order":3,"name":"first_online","label":"First Online","group":{"name":"ArticleHistory","label":"Article History"}}]}}