[Studies in Computational Intelligence 481] Artur Babiarz, Robert Bieda, Karol Jędrasiak, Aleksander Nawrat (auth.), Aleksander Nawrat, Zygmunt Kuś (eds.) - Vision Based Systemsfor UAV Applications (2013, Sprin

Prototyping the Autonomous
Flight Algorithms Using the Prepar3D® Simulator 221
Fig. 1. Simulator implemented in "C" language
In the work [6] the flight simulator was implemented in "C" language and tak-
ing into account an airplane model servos and simulated GPS (fig. 1). Procerus
Technologies [7] developed even its own electronic system (autopilot), which
allows to control both the
real object as well as testing the HIL-simulation. Kestrel
Autopilot is designed to control the UAV objects of flying wing type, where the
control system is based on a PID controllers cascade. In closing we can mention
the work of the Institute of Aviation [8],which uses the Kestrel autopilot system
for designing robust optimal control based on H-infinity and μ-Synthesis method.
The articles mentioned above describe only control algorithms, and the simulators
characterized by them are
not so advanced to support the image data processing
from on-board cameras.
Based on the experience of C. Kownacki [9], at the beginning we have
performed autonomous flight control algorithms, that allowed us to get better re-
sults with prototyping the
vision based algorithms. It is important, that this article
describes the use of images from simulation to road tracking algorithms. Image
which was taken from a camera (fig. 2), was processed by the Sobel operator
followed by linear Hough algorithm. Similar assumptions and conclusions are
described in derivative works [10] and [11].
Fig. 2. Example of road edge detection [9]