Multi-robot systems promise to provide efficient solutions for an ever increasing variety of different applications, such as exploration of hostile environments, disaster recovery, construction, and nano-scale medicine.

Each of these applications is characterized by several aspects, such as environment dynamics (e.g. orbit, water flow, wind, rough terrain, bloodstream), robot types (e.g., mechatronics, sensors, actuators), and communication means (e.g., wifi, vision, stigmergy, etc.).

Physics-based simulation plays a fundamental role in the study of solutions for this wide set of applications.