General simulation platform for vision based UAV testing

Abstract

The main purpose of this article is to build a general platform for Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) simulation especially for vision algorithms. This general simulation platform can also connect to realistic UAVs for further tests. The platform enables UAVs controlled by a variety of advanced vision algorithms to accomplish certain tasks. Unlike the previous simulation systems, which can only achieve tasks with certain drones, we are committed to build a platform to support a variety of vision based UAVs simulation platform. And if the simulation test is successful, we can apply vision algorithms to realistic UAVs' tests based on our platform with little adaption. We use open source Gazebo as a simulator and combined with ROS (Robot Operating System) to implement UAVs simulation. Besides, we build a general UAVs link interface to connect realistic UAVs with ROS. All these works construct the general simulation platform.