4.3 Design Requirements, System requirements and Technical specifications

Design Requirements

Based on the design brief, the following features have been included in the final simulation.

• Full customisablitity of world generation (orchard rows, shelter belts) and entity generation.
• Picker and carrier robots which navigate the world performing their respective functions.
• Human entities (Workers, visitors and worker's driving tractors) that navigate the world with purpose.
• Animal entities with various behaviors.
• Random obstacle generation and robot avoidance of obstacles.
• Inter robot communication in the form of a swarm orientated system.
• Innovative feature's such as an advanced user interface and web service allowing monitoring from any location.

System Requirements

Due to the complexity and number of entities running concurrently, as well as the ROS operating systems hardware dependencies, it is recommended that the simulation is run on the following hardware specifications.

Minimum Requirements

• Dual Core CPU.
• 2GB Ram.
• Linux OS, via virtual machine or natively.

With the above specifications the simulation will operate, however performance is not guaranteed, with low frame rates and slow user interfaces to be expected, especially on virtual machines.

Recommended Requirements

• Quad Core CPU.
• 2GB Ram.
• Native Linux OS.

Using the above specifications the simulation will run smoothly, with a steady frame rate and responsive user interface.

Technical Specifications

ROS has been observed to operate incorrectly if the simulation is run at increased speeds. The result of this is an unstable simulation that will not operate as expected. It is therefore recommended that the simulation be run at the default simulation speed, with a maximum speed increment of two if additional speed is required. Correct performance is not guaranteed past the default speed.