UAV Scenario Designer

Open the App

Open the UAV Scenario Designer app by selecting the app in the Apps tab, under Robotics and Autonomous Systems or by running uavScenarioDesigner in the command window.

Add Scene Objects

Define a polygon with three vertices. For more information about defining polygon scene objects, see Create Polygon Scene Objects.

poly = [0 0; 1 1; 2 0];

In the UAV Scenario Designer app toolstrip, in the Scene Object section, select Polygon.

In the Import Polygon dialog box, select poly and click Import. Click anywhere on the UAV Scenario Canvas to place the polygon.

In the Property Panel pane, adjust the Position values of the polygon to for X, Y, and Z to 0, and change Height to 5. To change the elevation of the polygon so that the bottom face makes contact with the ground, click Snap To Ground Elevation.

Add Platform

On the app toolstrip, in the Platform section, select Quadrotor and click anywhere in the UAV Scenario Canvas to place the quadrotor. In the Property Panel pane, set the X position of the quadrotor to 5 and the Y and Z positions of the quadrotor to -5. Note that the reference frame of the platform is north-east-down (NED) by default. Click Zoom to Scenario to zoom in to the polygon and platform.

Add Sensor

With the quadrotor platform selected, on the app toolstrip, in the Sensors section, select Lidar, and click anywhere on the Sensor Canvas to add a lidar sensor. In the Property Panel pane, change the X position of the mounting point of the lidar sensor to 0 and the Y and Z positions to 0.125 and 0, respectively, in the local reference frame of the platform.

Import UAV Scenario and Terrain File

Create a UAV scenario and add building meshes from an OSM file containing building meshes for Manhattan [1].

scene = uavScenario(ReferenceLocation=[40.707088 -74.012146 0]);
addMesh(scene,"terrain",{"gmted2010",[-200 200],[-200 200]},[0.6 0.6 0.6]);
addMesh(scene,"buildings",{"manhattan.osm",[-200 200],[-200 200],"auto"},[0 1 0]);

Open the UAV Scenario Designer app and click Import Scenario to import a scenario from the MATLAB® workspace. To make the each building more distinguishable, generate new colors for each of the building meshes by clearing Preserve scenario colors at import. Select scene and click Import.

The imported building meshes appear. Turn off the building markers in the UAV Scenario Canvas and UAV Scenario View pane by selecting Hide Scene Object Markers in each pane.

Note that to move buildings, you can drag the scene object marker of the building in the UAV Scenario Canvas pane. You can also zoom in to and delete a scene object from the Scene Browser pane by clicking and right-clicking on the object respectively.

Add Platform and Sensor

In the Platform section, select Fixed Wing, and then click anywhere in the UAV Scenario Canvas to add a fixed-wing UAV platform to the scenario. With the platform selected, in the Property Panel pane, set the X value of the Position parameter to -256 and the Y and Z values to -137 and -125, respectively. Note that the Reference Frame parameter of the platform is set to NED.

To add a lidar sensor to the platform, in the Sensors section, select Lidar and click anywhere in the Sensor Canvas. Specify the mounting position of the sensor on the platform by, in the Property Panel pane, setting the X value of the Position parameter to 0.25 and the Y and Z values to 0. All values are in the local coordinate frame of the platform mesh.

Create Trajectory

Select the Trajectory tab and, with the platform selected, select Add Waypoints. To create a trajectory for the platform, click in the UAV Scenario Canvas. To zoom in or out while adding points to the trajectory, scroll with the scroll wheel as needed. Add three points to the trajectory, and end trajectory creation by pressing Esc, Enter, or double-clicking in the UAV Scenario Canvas.

Click Time-Altitude Plot to open the time-altitude plot in the UAV Scenario Canvas. In the time-altitude plot, drag the first waypoint vertically to an altitude of 126 meters in the time-altitude plot. Note that you cannot move the waypoint left or right along the Time axis. To change the time value for waypoints, on the app toolstrip, in the Path and Orientation section, set Time to Manual. Then, drag the second waypoint to approximately 125 meters in altitude at 20 seconds. For more information about the other trajectory settings in the Path and Orientation section, see Trajectory.

Note, in the UAV Scenario View pane, that the platform may be too close to one of the buildings at the second waypoint. Adjust this waypoint by dragging it on the UAV Scenario Canvas, or by editing the position of the waypoint in the Trajectory Table. Select Trajectory Table to open the Trajectory Table pane, and click on the second waypoint. The table highlights the data of the selected waypoint in blue. Set the X and Y elements to 65 and 0, respectively. You can edit the data of any waypoint in this table as long as the corresponding Path and Orientation parameters are set to Manual.

Note that you can also delete or insert waypoints by right-clicking a waypoint or a trajectory between waypoints in the UAV Scenario Canvas and clicking Delete Waypoint or Insert Waypoint respectively in the right-click dialog boxes.

Simulate Scenario

In the Scene Browser pane, select the platform. Then select UAV Scenario tab and set Update Rate to 50 Hz. In the Simulate section, select Parameters and set Number of Frames to 30.

Click Simulate to open the Simulate tab.

Run the simulation and click Zoom to Selection to center the camera over the platform as it follows the trajectory.

After the platform completes the trajectory, click Close Simulate to return to the UAV Scenario tab.

Export UAV Scenario

Export the scenario or session to share the scenario or to later modify the scenario in UAV Scenario Designer. Click Export Scenario to open the Export Scenario to Workspace dialog box. Name the scenario and click Export to export the scenario to the MATLAB workspace as a uavScenario object.

To save the session as a MAT file, in the File section, select Save Session.

References

[1] The file was downloaded from https://www.openstreetmap.org, which provides access to crowd-sourced map data all over the world. The data is licensed under the Open Data Commons Open Database License (ODbL), https://opendatacommons.org/licenses/odbl/

Create UAV Scenario

Create a UAV scenario and set its local origin.

scene = uavScenario(UpdateRate=100,StopTime=15,ReferenceLocation=[46 42 0]);

Add an inertial frame, MAP, to the scenario.

scene.addInertialFrame("ENU","MAP",trvec2tform([1 0 0]));

Use the minjerkpolytraj function to generate the piecewise polynomial for the specified waypoints of the trajectory.

waypoints = [0 50 100; 0 -50 0; 0 0 0];
timePoints = [0 3.8596 11.4451];
numSamples = 100;
[~,~,~,~,pp,~,~] = minjerkpolytraj(waypoints,timePoints,numSamples);

Generate Trajectory from Piecewise Polynomial Using polynomialTrajectory

Use the polynomialTrajectory System object™ to generate a trajectory from the piecewise polynomial. Specify the sample rate of the trajectory. Set the AutoBank and AutoPitch properties to true.

traj = polynomialTrajectory(pp,SampleRate=100,AutoBank=true,AutoPitch=true);

Create a UAV platform with a specified polynomial trajectory in the scenario. Define the mesh for the UAV platform.

platform = uavPlatform("custom",scene,"Trajectory",traj);
updateMesh(platform,"fixedwing",{20},[1 0 0],eul2tform([0 0 pi]))

Import UAV Scenario

Open the UAV Scenario Designer app by selecting the app in the Apps tab, under Robotics and Autonomous Systems or by running uavScenarioDesigner in the command window.

To import a UAV scenario into the UAV Scenario Designer app:

Simulate Scenario

To simulate the scenario:

To save the session as a MAT file, in the File section, select Save Session.

Limitations

UAV Scenario Designer app support for the polynomialTrajectory System object is limited to importing the trajectory into a scene and simulating the trajectory. Editing and creation options are not available when using polynomialTrajectory.