Closing the Gap in Swarm Robotics Simulations: An Extended Ardupilot/Gazebo plugin
This provides a more realistic simulation environment for researchers in swarm robotics, but it is incremental as it builds on existing tools.
The authors tackled the lack of swarm robotics simulation capabilities in Ardupilot by extending it to handle such applications in ROS/Gazebo, resulting in a comprehensive test-bed using an existing UAV model.
This work provides an extension of Ardupilot's capabilities to allow researchers to develop swarm robotics applications in Robot Operating System(ROS)/Gazebo simulations. Ardupilot is a tool used for autopilot functions in autonomous air, land and underwater robots. However, the original Ardupilot was not designed for applications in the field of swarm robotics. Hence, the main contribution of this paper is to endow Ardupilot with the capability to handle swarm robotics simulations, including the refactoring of the manufacturer's description files. This work offers a comprehensive and realistic simulation test-bed for swarm robotics applications under the ROS/Ardupilot umbrella using an existing off-the-shelf Erlerobotics' erlecopter UAV.