BugWorld: A distributed environment for the

development of control architectures in multi-agent worlds

Nikolaus Alm?assy

[email protected]

Technical Report No. 93.32

Department of Computer Science, University Zurich-Irchel

Winterthurerstrasse 190, 8057 Zurich, Switzerland

August 23, 1993
Revised: December 3, 1993

Abstract

This software allows the simulation of several autonomous agents (simulated robots or simply bugs) equipped with distance sensors. Each bug can define a unique set of distance sensors located in the center of its circular body. The simulator consists of several different processes. Each new agent is a separate process that communicates with the simulator via Internet. In this way a great many of agents can be simulated at the same time on different workstations. The process that maintains all the information about the simulated world can run on a separate machine and is not slowed down by agents that might need more and more CPU time as the complexity of their architectures increases.

Contents

1 Motivation 2

2 Concept of the distributed simulator 2

3 Implementation 3

4 Genetic Algorithm connection 5

5 Usage of the simulator 5

6 Future enhancements 8

7 Conclusion 10