Ground Control Station for Multiple UAVs Flight Simulation

Abstract

This work describes the development of a computational system for a GCS (Ground Control Station) able to control the flight and navigation of multiple UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles), implementing features for formation flying and obstacle avoidance. The system was structured in two modules, the mission planning and the multiple flight control module. The mission planning consisted of two other, the formation planning and the path planning module. They were based on the NASA World Wind API, which enabled the use of these modules as a Geographic Information System - GIS, allowing the setting formation and path planning, directly on 3D maps. For the multiple flight control module, we developed a potential field based methodology. In this module, the formation coordinates are projected to the waypoints defined in the path planning, as virtual attraction coordinates for the aircraft. While the UAVs are attracted to the individual waypoints, the repulsive field takes care to avoid collision of the aircrafts along the planned trajectory. We built a simulation environment for testing and validation of the proposed methodology. With the simulator, it is possible to perform a mission planning and evaluate the potential field parameters settings, through the visualization of the simulated flight before a mission. Another feature of this environment is the integration of the GCS with the flight simulator X-Plane, which communicates through the open source interface X-Pi (Interface Xplane), deploying multiple flights in such nearly real-like situation.