Simulation engineering tools for algorithm development and validation applied to unmanned systems

Abstract

Nowadays, synthetic environments are considered a powerful tool to perform system testing. The use of virtual experimentation means results in a cost-effective option when facing large and/or complex system testing campaigns. Simulation-based testing reduces resources use, eliminates risks of failure on real experimentation and increments the safety level, especially when working with UAS/RPAS. Moreover, the use of simulation leads to a reduction of development costs and time to market. This work presents a set of simulation tools for UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) and UGV (Unmanned Ground Vehicles) systems that have been developed in the framework of the FP7 ECSAFEMOBIL project. They are intended to be used as a tool to perform validation tests before real experimentation. The EC-SAFEMOBIL project is devoted to the development of sufficiently accurate motion estimation and control methods and technologies in order to reach higher levels of reliability and safety to enable unmanned vehicle deployment in a broad range of applications (landing on mobile platform, cooperative surveillance, etc.). These simulation tools allow testing the cited methods in a synthetic environment, using the exactly same estimation and control algorithms in the virtual world as those implemented for real systems. The comprehensive developed simulation environment has required the implementation of an optimized communication middleware, to provide flexibility, adaptability (allowing the addition or modification of control algorithms or UGVs, UAVs models, etc.) and scalability in order to fulfil the different needs of the specific scenarios. The development of a communication framework called ANIMO based on RTI implementation of DDS (Data Distribution Service) decouples the communication between modules or entities (UAV or UGV models, simulation core, etc.) from the simulation itself, and enables real-time communication of heterogeneous systems.