The ARUM Experimentation Platform: An Open Tool to Evaluate Mobile Systems Applications

Abstract

This paper present the ARUM robotic platform. Inspired by the needs of realism in mobile networks simulation, this platform is composed of small mobiles robots using real, but attenuated, Wi-Fi communication interfaces. To reproduce at a laboratory scale mobile systems, robots are moving in an 100 square meters area, tracked by a precise positioning system. In this document we present the rational of such simulation solution, provide its complete description, and show how it can be used for evaluation by briefly explaining how to implement specific algorithms on the computers embedded by the robots. This work is an application of multi-robotics to research, presenting solutions to important problems of multi-robotics. 1 Objectives In this paper, we present the ARUM robotic platform 1 targeted at evaluating performance, resilience and robustness of mobile systems. To obtain an efficient evaluation platform, three specific criteria were considered: Control conditions (real time monitoring, repeatability, flexibility, scalability), Effective implementation (easiness of configuration, devices autonomy, portability, low cost, miniaturization), and Realistic environment (network scale, traffic load, node mobility, positioning, radio broadcast behaviour). To our knowledge this platform is the only one to date to integrate all these features in a single environment.