Abstract
UAS flight simulation for research and development is a difficult problem because each airframe requires accurate physical models, control systems, an organized method of testing new control systems, virtual cameras for vision-based control, and methods of testing new control in the transition from simulation to flight tests. In an environment where researchers are temporary, such as a university, a standard research and development platform with these properties expedites prototyping and prevents code loss when an employee leaves. We develop a research simulation which conforms to all of these properties inside a Matlab environment. A series of mex functions provide connections to the autopilot for hardware-in-the-loop testing, graphical interfaces, and vision processing. The option to write C mex functions offers a seamless method of porting code to embedded systems, minimizing coding errors. We demonstrate fast prototyping by showing flight test data where the simulation provided virtual vision data to avoid virtual obstacles.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Beard, R., Kingston, D., Quigley, M., Snyder, D., Christiansen, R., Johnson, W., McLain, T., Goodrich, M.A.: Autonomous vehicle technologies for small fixed-wing UAVs. J. Aerosp. Comput. Inform. Commun. 2, 92–102 (2005)
Grasmeyer, J.M., Keennon, M.T.: Development of the black widow micro air vehicle. In: 39th AIAA Aerospace Sciences Meeting and Exhibit (AIAA Paper No. 2001-0127) (2001)
Grzywna, J.W., Jain, A., Plew, J., Nechyba, M.C.: Rapid development of vision-based control for MAVs through a virtual flight testbed. In: International Conference on Robotics and Automation (2005)
Kaiser, K., Gans, N., Dixon, W.: Localization and control of an aerial vehicle through chained, vision-based pose reconstruction. In: American Control Conference, pp. 5934–5939 (2007)
Nelson, D.R., Barber, B., McLain, T.W., Beard, R.W.: Vector field path following for miniature air vehicles. IEEE Trans. Robot. 23, 519–529 (2007)
Saunders, J., Beard, R.: Reactive vision based obstacle avoidance with camera field of view constraints. In: Guidance, Navigation, and Control Conference (2008)
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Saunders, J., Beard, R. UAS Flight Simulation with Hardware-in-the-loop Testing and Vision Generation. J Intell Robot Syst 57, 407–415 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10846-009-9354-6
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10846-009-9354-6