Simulation system for autonomous landing of unmanned aerial vehicles

This paper presents a real time simulation system for vision-based autonomous landing of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). The system structure, including the hardware configuration and the software architecture, is given. The system can verify key techniques involved in autonomous landing. The most special character of the simulation system is that it can bring visual feedbacks to the digital simulation system of landing by the virtual reality technique, which makes it possible to study vision-based estimations of position and pose. In order to be more flexible, the test-bed is developed base on Component Object Model (COM). A typical scenario of landing is tested on this system, which shows that the system can satisfy the design principles properly.