Simatch: A Simulation System for Highly Dynamic Confrontations Between Multi-Robot Systems

Simulation is becoming more and more important for robotics research, especially for multi-robot system research. Simatch, originating from the Robot World Cup (RoboCup) Middle Size League (MSL) match, is proposed to simulate the highly dynamic confrontation between multi-robot systems and validate the adversarial multi-robot strategies. It consists of three independent subsystems: the simulation subsystem setting up the simulated environment, the strategy subsystem realizing the multi-robot strategies and the scene subsystem describing the specific scene. Due to the independence of these subsystems, it is easy to employ Simatch for various applications. Simatch is validated by a series of tests, including a test of the omnidirectional locomotion, a simulated MSL match among ten robots and a simulated encirclement between sixteen robots. Since 2016, Simatch has been the official software for the MSL simulation match in the Chinese Robotics Competition. Besides, an MSL simulation project based on Simatch has been proposed to promote the development of MSL in the 2017 MSL international workshop. The proposed simulation system facilitates the development of multi-robot cooperation algorithms and related research.