Multi Agent Exploration Simulator (MAES) is an open-source physics based discrete step multi robot simulator created using Unity. We present MAES 2.0 as an extension to MAES 1.0, which introduces improved features in the form of heatmap visualization, custom signal degradation, custom user-provided maps, and an extended GUI for debugging.
Furthermore, MAES 2.0 allows for interfacing with the simulator through ROS (Robot Operating System), which results in easier portability of developed algorithms to real world robots. MAES 2.0 includes both unit tests and system tests to ensure intended behavior of the code. Furthermore, performance tests were conducted with modest hardware, which showed that MAES 2.0 is able to simulate up to 5 robots in ROSMode (using the ROS integration) and up 120 robots in UnityMode. A usability test was conducted which showed that the target audience of robotics researchers and developers were able to quickly install, setup, and use MAES for implementing simple robot logic.