A hardware in the loop simulation platform for vision-based control of unmanned air vehicles

Design and testing of control algorithms for unmanned air vehicles (UAV’s) is difficult due to the delicate and expensive nature of UAV systems, the risk of damage to property during testing, and government regulations. This necessitates extensive simulation of controllers to ensure stability and performance. However, simulations cannot capture all aspects of a flight control, such as sensor noise and actuator lag. For these reasons, hardware in the loop simulation (HILS) platforms are used. In this paper, a novel HILS platform is presented for vision-based control of UAV’s. This HILS platform consists of virtual reality software to produce realistic scenes projected onto a screen and viewed by a camera. Flight hardware includes an UAV with onboard autopilot interfaced to the virtual reality software. This UAV can be mounted in a wind tunnel, allowing attitude regulation through servoing the airfoils.