Multi-agent based simulator with high fidelity virtual sensors

Nowadays the distributed implementation of measurement/data processing/control systems is gaining importance. This process is driven by application domain needs. Wide variety of applications (e.g. mobile-robotic, intelligent vehicle, autonomous-guided-vehicle systems) can be modeled as a collection of interacting, highly autonomous, complex dynamical systems (entities). In these application domains each individual entity has a unique range of possible interactions with its environment and should rely on its own "information gathering" methods to understand its environment. This characteristic puts emphasis on sensing and sensory data interpretation. The resulting sensor data interpretation problem demands sophisticated evaluation/test environments, which incorporate high-fidelity sensor models. The paper describes a multi-agent real-time simulation framework, which allows high-fidelity virtual sensors (incl. imaging sensors) to be incorporated in the experiments. The resulting tool provides reproducibility, full control of the environment and a flexible mix of real and virtual components in simulation experiments.