GNSSim: An Open Source GNSS/GPS Framework for Unmanned Aerial Vehicular Network Simulation

Unmanned systems are of great importance in accomplishing tasks where human lives are at risk. These systems are being deployed in tasks that are time-consuming, expensive or inconclusive if accomplished by human intervention. Design, development and testing of such vehicles using actual hardware could be quite costly and dangerous. Another issue is the limited outdoor usage permitted by Federal Aviation Administration regulations, which makes outdoor testing difficult. An optimal solution to this problem is to have a simulation environment where different operational scenarios, newly developed models, etc., can be studied. In this paper, we propose GNSSim, a Global Navigation Satellite System (GNSS) simulation framework. We demonstrate its effectiveness by integrating it with UAVSim. This allows users to experiment easily by adjusting different satellite as well as UAV parameters. Related tests and evidence of the correctness of the implementation are presented. Received on 13 April 2015; accepted on 17 July 2015; published on 11 August 2015