Good experimental methodologies and simulation in autonomous mobile robotics

Francesco Amigoni

Viola Schiaffonati

pp. 315-332

in: Lorenzo Magnani, Walter Carnielli, Claudio Pizzi (eds), Model-based reasoning in science and technology, Berlin, Springer, 2010

Abstract

Experiments have proved fundamental constituents for natural sciences and it is reasonable to expect that they can play a useful role also in engineering, for example when the behavior of an artifact and its performance are difficult to characterize analytically, as it is often the case in autonomous mobile robotics. Although their importance, experimental activities in this field are often carried out with low standards of methodological rigor. Along with some initial attempts to define good experimental methodologies, the role of simulation experiments has grown in the last years, as they are increasingly used instead of experiments with real robots and are now considered as a good tool to validate autonomous robotic systems. In this work, we aim at investigating simulations in autonomous mobile robotics and their role in experimental activities conducted in the field.