Sensors, Vol. 20, Pages 1136: A Semi-Physical Platform for Guidance and Formations of Fixed-Wing Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (Sensors)

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have multi-domain applications, fixed-wing UAVsbeing a widely used class. Despite the ongoing research on the topics of guidance and formationcontrol of fixed-wing UAVs, little progress is known on implementation of semi-physical validationplatforms (software-in-the-loop or hardware-in-the-loop) for such complex autonomous systems.A semi-physical simulation platform should capture not only the physical aspects of UAV dynamics,but also the cybernetics aspects such as the autopilot and the communication layers connectingthe different components. Such a cyber-physical integration would allow validation of guidanceand formation control algorithms in the presence of uncertainties, unmodelled dynamics, low-levelcontrol loops, communication protocols and unreliable communication: These aspects are oftenneglected in the design of guidance and formation control laws for fixed-wing UAVs. This paperdescribes the development of a semi-physical platform for multi-fixed wing UAVs where all theaforementioned points are carefully integrated. The environment adopts Raspberry Pi’s programmedin C++, which can be interfaced to standard autopilots (PX4) as a companion computer. Simulationsare done in a distributed setting with a server program designed for the purpose of routing databetween nodes, handling the user inputs and configurations of the UAVs. Gazebo-ROS is used asa 3D visualization tool.