Using simulation to predict multi-robot performance on coverage tasks

Simulations are typically used to model a problem and find a solution before real world testing. They speed up the validation process and allow researchers to modify their code accordingly. However, a problem occurs when simulation results are not consistent with real world results. Researchers have found inconsistencies due to odometry error and team size. However, no research has studied the effects specific to robot teams that affect the realism of multi-robot experiments. This paper shows how simulation results vary from experimental results when conducting multi-robot experiments. Simulation and real experiments are performed using different environments and cooperation paradigms. Results show that specific environmental features and cooperation paradigms significantly affect the usefulness of simulated results when predicting performance of real robot teams.