# Integrated Robotic and Network Simulation Method
## 3 IRoNS Method  
The proposed method uses a workflow structure to guide the study simulation development, dividing the study in three development stages: Problem definition, simulation framework, and experimentation. The last two stages can be further divided following a 'plan, execute and assess' methodology, which leads to a final 10-steps procedure that is briefly described below (Figure 1). * **Problem Formulation (1):** The first part of the method is to state and define what kind of problem is going to be the object of study. In general, this initial part derives from an initial study or a demand that urges for a complex simulation for validation. * **Choosing Solutions (2):** After defining the problem, it is necessary to choose the techniques that allow solving the problem, i.e., techniques that will be simulated to emulate and assess the situation referred in the problem study. It is important to note that the IRoNS Method does not depend on any specific robotic or network techniques. * **System--Specifying (Initial Documentation) (3):** Consists in organizing all the information decided so far, describing the concepts behind the chosen techniques and giving a special attention to creating an assumptions document, which should be updated during the entire development cycle. * **Base Simulation--Planning (4):** The next step consists in planning the simulation framework (Base Simulation--BS), which is also referred to as conceptual and communicative modelling. This modelling includes documentation procedures with different objectives: firstly as a visual  
Figure 1: The Integrated Robotics and Network Simulation (IRoNS) method to build integrated robotics and network simulation studies, represented in terms of actions (arrows) and results (boxes). The underlined actions indicate critical points detailed in this paper. documentation to guide simulation implementation and secondly as textual documentation for study reproducibility. The idea is to gather all necessary information about the simulation study and framework before starting the implementation, including the system structure, expected interactions, simulator selection, desirable simulation characteristics, initial parameters values, and any other related information. The main documented topics are described in Section 3.1. * **Base Simulation--Implementing (5):** after the documentation, the focus now is implementing the simulation. In this case, we opted to continue extending a network simulator simulation with cooperative robotics features, as shown in [20]. The OMNeT++/INET [29] network simulator was selected for its modularity, graphical interface, community support, and easy code debug. Moreover, we did not observe significant performance differences between network simulators that could justify using another simulator. * **Base Simulation--Validating (6):** The resulting simulation, as referred a priori, is a candidate base simulation until it passes through a validation process, which verifies whether it keeps the main characteristics of a real system or of the original simulation [30]. This part uses Verification, Validation, and Test (VV&T) techniques, integrated with statistical analysis with confidence interval, which is further detailed in Section 3.2. * **Case-Study--Experimentation Design (Planning) (7):** Once the candidate simulation passes the validation process, it becomes a Base Simulation that is ready for experimentation. However, it is necessary to plan case studies to make sure they are aligned with the objectives defined in the first step of the method, thus requiring an experimentation design. A suggestion of experimental design is presented in Section 3.3. * **Case-Study--Experimenting (8):** This step consists in implementing the planned studies, executing simulations and gathering experimental results. The main concern, here, is to enforce experimental rigor to avoid collecting incorrect data or producing incorrect behaviors.