Study on simulation system for vision-based autonomous landing of unmanned combat aerial vehicles

A real time simulation test-bed for vision-based autonomous landing of unmanned combat aerial vehicles (UCAVs) was proposed, which can verify key techniques involved in autonomous landing. The system structure, including the hardware configuration and the software architecture, is given. The most special character of the test-bed is that it can bring visual feedbacks to the digital simulation system by the virtual reality technique, which makes it possible to verify vision-based position and pose estimation algorithms in real-time. In order to be more flexible, the test-bed was developed based 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.