UAV Playground - Simulator

[jaron]

The UAV Playground is my attempt of an approach to UAVs. It's a collection of components written in Java that allow you to simulate different aspects of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. With the current release you can:
- Control the FlightGear flight simulator via a network connection
- Access FlightGear's flight data including GPS NMEA code
- Implement your own algorithms (an example PID controller is included)
- Serve GPS KML data for tracking purpose in Google Earth

The project (http://code.google.com/p/uavplayground/) is Open Source and you can download it here (http://uavplayground.googlecode.com/files/UAVplayground-1.2.zip). Have a look at the examples for the Processing Development environment. They are quiet easy to understand.

You can find more information about the UAV Playground in one of my blog posts (http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/showthread.php?t=1000700) in my RCG blog (http://www.rcgroups.com/forums/member.php?u=176716) or in my blog post at DIY Drones (http://diydrones.com/profiles/blogs/uav-playground-12-an-approach).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5wtJi-dUJA

[jaron]

UAV Playground 1.2 [Update] (download (http://uavplayground.googlecode.com/files/UAVplayground-1.2.zip))
- Completely rewritten autopilot now supports waypoint navigation

http://static.rcgroups.com/forums/attachments/1/7/6/7/1/6/a2495814-57-UAVplayground-UAVsim-Screenshot.jpg

[brakar]

Looks impressive jaron! I will give this a try tomorrow. (Late at side of earth right now).

regards, brakar

[Gary Mortimer]

I've downloaded it all, I have got it all running, just need to work out whats going on!!

Not the sharpest tool in the box ;-)

[jaron]

Thanks guys for the replies and the feedback.

The project is a work in progress. So far it helped me to understand the logic behind stabilization and navigation and to figure out a possible software architecture for an autopilot. I'm currently working on the communication with an Arduino for a future hardware-in-the-loop simulation.

What's it all good for?:
- You can play with the stabilization and navigation PID gain sliders of the UAVsim to understand how they affect the stabilization
- You could install the Processing Development Environment or any other Java IDE and edit the navigation coordinates (waypoints) in the UAVsim.java file
- You could easily replace the stabilization and navigation algorithms in the autopilot package (Navigation, Stabilization) with your own logic - or optimize the existing ones
- The code shows you how to communicate with FilghtGear and Google Earth if you are planning to write your own software that makes use of flight and navigation data
- You could for example just use some of the software components and build something completely different than UAV or navigational related stuff

The UAVsim is just a demo application that makes use of all the components that are included in the UAV Playground project.

[spitfiremk9]

Jaron
Very nice, thank you