Virtual Testing Environment for Drones

Question

Does anyone know of a robotics developer environment ideal for testing AI programs for drones (e.g. quadcopters, planes, helicopters, etc.)? I would like something like Microsoft Robotics Developer Studio that includes a virtual environment (such as an outdoor environment with gravity, wind, etc.) to test out flight dynamics. I would like the options to add sensors to the virtual drone, such as gps, altimeter, gyros, etc. that the AI program can then use to steer the drone.

Answer 1

I suppose that carefully configured simulation based on Nvidia PhysX may be a great challenge for drone AI. Though it is a general purpose physics engine, it doen't prevents you from creating a fine flight model. And it allows you to build accurate and detailed virtual environment (based on variety of collider types) which will actually represent a challenge.

Answer 2

I'm not sure if this is helpful, but i watched a Defcon 20 talk not long ago and during a demonstration the guy used a modded flight simulator perhaps you could do something similar? approx 42 mins in DEFCON 20: Hacker + Airplanes = No Good Can Come Of This

Answer 3

You may want to have a look at Gazebo. A robotic simulator fully integrated with ROS and with some physics engines. It handles sensors, graphics rendering and has some built-in robot models.

You might also want to have a look at this, a ROS model of a UAV.

Answer 4

I don't know if this is what you are looking for but so far only few softwares are available for testing drones, he Real Flight simulates 15 different popular hobbyist and professional drone from Heli-Max to Hubsan X4 Pro whether its quadcopter or hexacopter, this could be of help

http://smalldronesreview.com/2016/04/18/real-flight-drone-simulator-ok-crash-drone/