ABStractme: Modularized Environment Modeling in Agent-based Simulations

Deividi Moreira (Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Fernando Santos (Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) & UDESC), Matheus Barbieri (Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS), Ingrid Nunes (Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) & Technical University of Dortmund), Ana L. C. Bazzan (Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS)

Abstract

This paper presents ABStractme, a tool for modeling the simulated environment in agent-based simulations. Differently from existing alternatives, ABStractme allows specification of the environment in terms of concerns, which improve modularization. Moreover, it supports the modeling of setup aspects of the simulation, in addition to entities and the spatial abstraction. The tool generates ready-touse code for the NetLogo simulation platform. A user study provided evidence that ABStractme is useful, enjoyable, and easy to use and learn. Demonstration video: https://youtu.be/Z4DeVDwdjVw