ARGoS is a physics-based simulator designed to simulate large-scale robot swarms. Benchmark results show that ARGoS can perform physics-accurate simulation involving thousands of robots in a fraction of real time. ARGoS' main features are:
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Multi-threaded and deeply modular architecture, more flexible than any simulator with equivalent features;
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The possibility to run multiple physics engines at the same time;
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The possibility to divide the physical space in region, and assign different regions to different physics engines.
Starting from version 3, ARGoS is released under the terms of the MIT license.
You can download a binary package of ARGoS from http://www.argos-sim.info/download.php. Alternatively, you can download the development sources through git:
$ git clone https://github.com/ilpincy/argos3.git argos3
If you downloaded the sources of ARGoS and want to compile its code, you need:
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A UNIX system (Linux or MacOSX; Microsoft Windows is not supported)
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g++ >= 4.3 (on Linux)
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clang >= 3.1 (on MacOSX)
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cmake >= 2.6
If you want to compile the simulator, you need:
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gsl >= 1.15
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FreeImage >= 3.15
The OpenGL-based graphical visualization is compiled only if the following libraries are found:
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Qt >= 4.6
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freeglut >= 2.6.0
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libxi-dev (on Ubuntu and other Debian-based systems)
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libxmu-dev (on Ubuntu and other Debian-based systems)
If you want to create the Lua wrapper you need:
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lua == 5.2
If you want to create the documentation you need:
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To create the API:
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Doxygen >= 1.7.3
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Graphviz/dot >= 2.28
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To create the HTML version of this README:
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asciidoc >= 8.6.2
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On Debian, you can install all of the necessary requirements with the following command:
$ sudo apt-get install libgsl0-dev libfreeimage-dev libqt4-dev \ freeglut3-dev libxi-dev libxmu-dev liblua5.2-dev lua5.2 \ doxygen graphviz-dev asciidoc
On openSUSE 13.2, you can install all of the necessary requirements with the following commands:
$ sudo zypper ar -n openSUSE-13.2-Graphics \ http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/graphics/openSUSE_13.2/ \ graphics
$ sudo zypper refresh
$ sudo zypper install git cmake gcc gcc-c++ gsl-devel freeimage-devel \ doxygen graphviz asciidoc lua-devel libqt4-devel freeglut-devel \ rpmbuild
On Mac, you can install all of the necessary requirements using HomeBrew. On the command line, type the following command:
$ brew install pkg-config cmake gsl libpng freeimage lua qt \ docbook asciidoc graphviz doxygen
The compilation of ARGoS is configured through CMake.
$ cd argos3 $ mkdir build_simulator $ cd build_simulator $ cmake ../src $ make
$ cd argos3 $ mkdir build_myrobot $ cd build_myrobot $ cmake -DARGOS_BUILD_FOR=myrobot ../src $ make
To use Eclipse with the ARGoS sources, you must have the
CDT installed. Optionally, you can also
install CMakeEd to modify the
CMakeLists.txt files comfortably within Eclipse.
To configure the ARGoS sources for Eclipse, it is better to avoid compiling the code in a separate build directory (for more details, see here). Thus, execute CMake as follows:
$ cd argos3 $ cmake -G "Eclipse CDT4 - Unix Makefiles" src/
Now open Eclipse. Click on File → Import…, select
Existing project into workspace, and click on Next. Set the base argos3
directory as the root directory in the dialog that appears. Click on Next
and you’re ready to go.
The compilation of ARGoS can be configured through a set of CMake options:
| Variable | Type | Meaning [default value] |
|---|---|---|
|
STRING |
Build type ( |
|
STRING |
Install prefix ( |
|
STRING |
Target of compilation ( |
|
BOOLEAN |
Whether to use platform-specific instructions [ |
|
BOOLEAN |
Use or not the thread-safe version of |
|
BOOLEAN |
Compile (and use) dynamic loading facilities [ |
|
BOOLEAN |
Use |
|
BOOLEAN |
Create API documentation [ |
|
BOOLEAN |
Install the file |
You can pass the wanted values from the command line. For instance, if you wanted to set explictly all the default values, when compiling on Linux you would write:
$ cd argos3/build_simulator
$ cmake -DCMAKE_BUILD_TYPE=Debug \
-DCMAKE_INSTALL_PREFIX=/usr/local \
-DARGOS_BUILD_FOR=simulator \
-DARGOS_BUILD_NATIVE=OFF \
-DARGOS_THREADSAFE_LOG=ON \
-DARGOS_DYNAMIC_LOADING=ON \
-DARGOS_USE_DOUBLE=ON \
-DARGOS_DOCUMENTATION=ON \
-DARGOS_INSTALL_LDSOCONF=ON \
../src
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Important
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When ARGOS_BUILD_FOR is set to simulator, ARGOS_THREADSAFE_LOG
and ARGOS_DYNAMIC_LOADING must be ON.
|
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Important
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If you want to install ARGoS without root privileges, remember to set
ARGOS_INSTALL_LDSOCONF to OFF. Otherwise, installation will fail
midway.
|
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Tip
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For production environments, it is recommended to compile ARGoS with
CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE set to Release. If you want to debug ARGoS, it is
recommended to set CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE to Debug. The other standard
settings (empty and RelWithDebInfo) are supported but should be avoided.
|
|
Tip
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If you want to squeeze maximum performance from ARGoS, along with compiling
with CMAKE_BUILD_TYPE set to Release, you can also set ARGOS_BUILD_NATIVE
to ON. This setting instructs the compiler to use the compiler flags
-march=native and -mtune=native. The code will run faster because you
use the entire instruction set of your processor, but the generated binaries
won’t be portable to computers with different processors.
|
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Important
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You can’t install ARGoS system-wide and run the source version at the same time. If you intend to run ARGoS from the sources, you must uninstall it from the system. |
If you don’t want to install ARGoS on your system, you can run it from the sources
tree. In the directory build_simulator/ you’ll find a bash script called
setup_env.sh. Executing this script, you configure the current environment to
run ARGoS:
$ cd argos3 $ cd build_simulator $ . setup_env.sh # or 'source setup_env.sh' $ cd core $ ./argos3 -q all # this shows all the plugins recognized by ARGoS
If you execute ARGoS with the graphical visualization, you’ll notice that icons and textures are missing. This is normal, as ARGoS by default looks for them in the default install location. To fix this, you need to edit the default settings of the GUI.
On Linux, edit the file $HOME/.config/Iridia-ULB/ARGoS.conf as follows:
[MainWindow] # # other stuff # icon_dir=/PATH/TO/argos3/src/plugins/simulator/visualizations/qt-opengl/icons/ texture_dir=/PATH/TO/argos3/src/plugins/simulator/visualizations/qt-opengl/textures/ # # more stuff #
On Mac, write the following commands on the terminal window:
$ defaults write be.ac.ulb.Iridia.ARGoS MainWindow.texture_dir -string "/PATH/TO/argos3/src/plugins/simulator/visualizations/qt-opengl/textures/" $ defaults write be.ac.ulb.Iridia.ARGoS MainWindow.icon_dir -string "/PATH/TO/argos3/src/plugins/simulator/visualizations/qt-opengl/icons/" $ killall -u YOURUSERNAME cfprefsd
Be sure to substitute /PATH/TO/ with the correct path that contains the argos3
folder, and YOURUSERNAME with your username as displayed on the terminal.
You can debug the ARGoS code using gdb. Since the code in scattered across multiple
directories, you need a .gdbinit file. Luckily for you, this file is created
automatically when you compile ARGoS. To use it, you just need to remember to
run the ARGoS simulator from the build_simulator/core/ directory:
$ cd argos3/build_simulator/core $ gdb ./argos3
To install ARGoS after having compiled the sources, it is enough to write:
$ cd argos3 $ cd build_simulator # or 'cd build_myrobot' $ make doc # documentation is required! $ sudo make install
Alternatively, one can create a package. To build all the packages supported by your system, run these commands:
$ cd argos3
$ git tag -a X.Y.Z-release # give the package a unique version
# the format must be as shown
# X = version major
# Y = version minor
# Z = version patch
# release = a textual label
$ cd build_simulator # or 'cd build_myrobot'
$ cmake . # let CMake read the newly set tag
$ make doc # documentation is required!
$ make # compile the code
$ sudo make package # make the package
This typically creates a self-extracting .tar.gz archive, a .tar.bz2 archive,
a .zip archive, and a platform-specific archive (.deb, .rpm, or a MacOSX
package). You can determine which packages to create by setting the variables
CPACK_BINARY_DEB, CPACK_BINARY_RPM, CPACK_BINARY_STGZ,
CPACK_BINARY_TBZ2, CPACK_BINARY_TGZ, CPACK_BINARY_TZ.
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Important
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the creation of source packages through the command
make package_source is not supported.
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An easier option is to install ARGoS from a package distributed at http://www.argos-sim.info/download.php.