[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

222 K. Daniec et al.
3 Lockheed Martin Prepar3D
Prepar3D® was mostly implemented by Lockheed Martin, but it was created on
Microsoft ESP (Enterprise Simulation Platform), which was designed for the purpose
of Microsoft Flight Simulator. Microsoft's program has been widely used, but
it was limited only to control the flying objects, which also proved to be insufficient
for current military purposes. To ensure the possibility of further product
development, Lockheed employed several members of the ACES studio. In the
future, Lockheed Martin is going to modify the Microsoft ESP to allow its use for
military and civil services training in the event of any type of disasters.
Prepar3D® flight simulator has a wide range of functionality. Three of them
appear to be necessary and sufficient for prototyping control algorithms. The first
of functionalities is object model configuration. Configuration of the model allows
us for example to change many of the physical and geometrical parameters such as
weight, size and wingspan. It also allows us to change dynamic parameters such as
engine power, effectiveness and stability of ailerons or elevator deflection. Those
allows us to parameterize object model, whose behaviour resembles the real
object.
There can be configured the sea, air and road traffic, that proves to be useful for
prototyping the vision based algorithms, for example, for vehicle and ships tracking
purpose. The simulation allows to create on-board cameras, which can be
moved or zoomed both by an operator and also as well as an appropriate autonomous
algorithm. It is possible to run multiple cameras at one time, not only in
vision system, but also in thermo-vision, night-vision (fig. 3) and infrared vision
systems. These virtual cameras can be placed (configured) in areas that correspond
to the location of cameras in real UAV. Optionally it could be possible to acquire
multispectral images [12]. This gives a wide possibilities to create different types
of algorithms for object detection and obstacle avoidance. These algorithms can be
further moved to the real aircraft electronic module.
a) b)
Fig. 3. Vision systems: a) night vision, and b) thermo-vision