Simulation of Aerial Robotics

Simulation is crucial when working with Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs). Testing different trajectories and control paradigms in a simulator before implementing them on the real platform ensures not only safety but also facilitates development.

This page presents several simulator options for aerial robotics enthusiasts.

Comparison

The following simulators have their own integrated physics simulation and basic rendering capabilities. They are capable of simulating the aerodynamic forces necessary to keep UAVs airborne:

For the following comparison, we have refered to this article:

C. A. Dimmig et al., "Survey of Simulators for Aerial Robots: An Overview and In-Depth Systematic Comparisons," in IEEE Robotics & Automation Magazine, doi: 10.1109/MRA.2024.3433171

The Arxiv prepint of the paper can be found here

Features

List migh not be complete. If you see any error or missing components, feel free to open a PR or issue.

Name	Physics Engine	Rendering	Linux1	Windows1	MacOS1	Interface	(S/H)ITL2	Active3	Hardware requirement4	Licence	Open source5	Interest 6
Gazebo ( RotorS, CrazyS, PX4 SITL)	ODE/ Bullet/ DART/ Simbody	OGRE	✓ ( ✓ ✓ ✓ )	✱ ( ✗ ✗ ✗)	✓ ( ✗ ✗ ✗ )	ROS 1/2, C++, RL	PX4, ArduPilot, CF7	✓ ( ✗ ✱ ✗ )	minimal/decent	Apache 2.0	✓	High
Gazebo	Bullet/ DART/ TPE	OGRE	✓	✱	✓	ROS 1/2, C++, Python, RL	PX4, ArduPilot, CF	✓	minimal/decent	Apache 2.0	✓	High
Isaac ( Pegasus, Aerial Gym)	NVIDIA PhysX/ Flex	Vulkan	✓	✗	✗	ROS 1/2, Python, RL	Pegasus: PX4	✓	high/demanding	NVIDIA OMNIVERSE (BSD 3)	✗ (✓ ✓)	User specific
Webots	ODE	OpenGL	✓	✓	✓	ROS 1/2, C/C++, Python, MATLAB, Java	ArduPilot, CF	✓	decent/high	Apache 2.0	✓	Developing
CoppeliaSim	Bullet/ODE/Vortex/Newton/MuJoCo	OpenGL	✓	✓	✓	ROS 1/2, C/C++, Python, MATLAB, Java,Lua,Octave	--	✓	decent/high	GNU GPL/Commercial	✱	Decent
AIRsim	NVIDIA PhysX	Unreal,Unity	✓	✓	✓	ROS 1, C++, Python, C#, Java,RL	PX4, ArduPilot	✗	medium/high	MIT	✓	Low
Flightmare	Ad hoc, Gazebo classic	Unity	✓	✗	✗	ROS 1, C++, RL	--	✗	--	MIT	✓	Low
FlightGoggles	Ad hoc	Unity	✓	✱	✗	ROS 1, C++	Motion capture	✗	--	MIT	✓	Unknown
Gym-pybullet-drones	Pybullet	OpenGL	✓	✱	✓	Python, RL	Betaflight, CF	✓	minimal/decent/high	MIT (Pybullet: zlib)	✓	High
RotorTM	Ad hoc	OpenGL	✓	✗	✗	ROS 1, Python, MATLAB	--	✓	--	GNU GPL	✓	Unknown
MATLAB UAV Toolbox	MATLAB	Unreal	✓	✓	✓	ROS 2, MATLAB	PX4	✓	--	Proprietary, Commercial	✗	Unknown
O3de	NVIDIA PhysX/ NVIDIA Cloth/ AMD TressFX	Atom	✓	✓	✱	ROS 28 , C++	unknown	✓	decent/high	Apache-2.0/MIT	✓	Developing
Drake	ad hoc	unknown	✓	✗	✓	C++, Python, ROS 2	unknown	✓	unknown	BSD 3	✓	Developing
Flightgear	unknown	unknown	✓	✓	✓	C++	unknown	✓	minimal/decent	GNU-GPL	✓	Low
RealFlight	unknown	unknown	✗	✓	✗	--	unknown	✓	minimal/decent	non-public	✗	Low
RotorPy	ad hoc	unknown	✓	✓	✓	Python	--	✓	minimal/decent	MIT	✓	Developing
jMAVSim	unkown	Java3D	✓	✓	✓	Java, UDP	PX4	✓	minimal/decent	BSD-3	✓	Low

Vehicle types

Simulator	Multirotor (Basic)	Multirotor (Drag)	Multirotor (Wind)	Fixed-wings	Aerial Manipulators	Swarms	Cars	Other vehicles
Gazebo (Classic & New)	✓	✓	✓	✓	✱	✱	✓	✓
Isaac (Pegasus, Aerial Gym)	✓	✗(✓,✗)	✗	✗	✗	✓	✓(✗,✗)	✓(✗,✗)
Webots	✓	✗	✗	✗	✗	✱	✓	✓
CoppeliaSim	✓	✓	✱	✗	✱	✱	✓	✓
AirSim	✓	✓	✓	✗	✗	✱	✓	✗
Flightmare	✓	✓	✗	✗	✗	✓	✗	✗
FlightGoggles	✓	✓	✗	✗	✗	✗	✓	✗
gym-pybullet-drones	✓	✓	✗	✗	✗	✓	✗	✗
RotorTM	✓	✗	✗	✗	✓	✓	✗	✗
MATLAB UAV Toolbox	✓	✓	✓	✓	✗	✱	✗	✗
O3de*	~	?	?	?	?	?	~	~
Drake*	?	?	?	?	?	?	?	?
RotorPy*	~	~	~	✗	✗	~	✗	✗

• [ * ] : Unknown data. If you have information on specific topic, please comment bellow with the referance link.
  • [ ~ ] : Yes according to my knowledge but it needs development.
  • [ ? ] : Unknown
  • [ ✗ ] : No according to my research.
• [ ✓ ] : Yes
• [ ✱ ] : Yes. But not specifically designed for it
• [ ✗ ] : No

Simulation tools

• UAV Inertia Tool (https://uavtools.bartslinger.com/): A visual tool to calculate the inertia of aerial vehicles. Goes along with this blogpost.

Sensor support

TODO

Flight dynamics models

Some simulators mostly focus on creating accurate dynamics for aerial vehicles. Here are some options:

• JSBSim (https://github.com/JSBSim-Team/jsbsim)
• YASim (https://wiki.flightgear.org/YASim)
• More to be added!

Available UAV Models

Each simulator typically offers a range of ready-to-use aerial vehicle models:

• Gazebo: https://app.gazebosim.org/search;q=uav

• Webots: https://webots.cloud/proto?keyword=robot%2Fflying

Autopilot Suites

Several autopilot suites provide instructions for using simulators, often with Software-in-the-Loop (SITL) or Hardware-in-the-Loop (HITL) options:

• Ardupilot: https://ardupilot.org/copter/docs/common-simulation.html
• Betaflight: https://betaflight.com/docs/development/SITL#sitl-in-realflight-9
• Crazyflie: https://www.bitcraze.io/documentation/tutorials/getting-started-with-simulation/
• DJI: https://www.dji.com/se/simulator
• Paparazzi UAV: https://wiki.paparazziuav.org/wiki/Simulation
• PX4: https://docs.px4.io/main/en/simulation/#simulation
• ROSflight: https://docs.rosflight.org/v1.3/user-guide/gazebo_simulation/

Aerial Robotics Simulator lists

• Aerial Robotics category in the Best-Of-Robot-Simulators list: https://github.com/knmcguire/best-of-robot-simulators#aerial-robotics-simulators/

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Footnotes

1. ✓: Full support, ✱: Partial support, ✗: No support ↩ ↩² ↩³

2. (Software/Hardware) In The Loop ↩

3. ✓: Active and maintained, ✱: Inactive but responding to issues/ PR, ✗: Inactive for 2+ years ↩

4. For a referance, a laptop running Intel i5 10th gen (or similar) with 8gb ddr4 ram and NVIDIA T100 4gb (or similar) are considered as minimal requirement. ↩

5. ✓: Yes, ✱: Yes for non commercial use-case , ✗: No ↩

6. Usage in Aerial ROS/Robotics community according to several survey on Discourse and during the meetings. ↩

7. Crazyflie ↩

8. It seem under development and there is some docs out there. ↩