Homecs.ROarXiv:2605.29973

Replicable Simulation-Based Robot Validation through Provenance

cs.RO2026-05v1license

Abstract

Robot behavior is often validated through simulation-based testing, yet the replicability of such campaigns depends critically on transparent documentation of how tests are configured, executed, and post-processed. We argue that data provenance, coupled with the FAIR principles (findability, accessibility, interoperability, and reusability), addresses this gap by explicitly tracking links between artifacts and by attaching machine-readable metadata about file origins and key design decisions. Moreover, provenance and metadata cannot be treated as an afterthought confined to final datasets; they must be integrated into the testing processes that generate those datasets so that evidence can be reconstructed end-to-end. We demonstrate this by augmenting an existing simulation-based testing framework with provenance tracking and metadata collection mechanisms, and by using these extensions to enrich a mobile robot navigation dataset with structured provenance and FAIR-aligned metadata. Finally, we discuss obstacles encountered in this integration -- such as vocabulary alignment, attribute selection, and adoption of domain standards -- and provide actionable recommendations for implementing provenance-centric, FAIR metadata in robotics validation workflows.

Cite

@article{arxiv.2605.29973,
  title  = {Replicable Simulation-Based Robot Validation through Provenance},
  author = {Argentina Ortega and Samuel Wiest and Frederik Pasch and Nico Hochgeschwender},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:2605.29973},
  year   = {2026}
}