A New Simulation Environment Based on Airsim, ROS, and PX4 for Quadcopter Aircrafts

In recent years, quadcopter aircrafts are widely used in various fields. Nowadays, the test methods for quadcopter can't meet the test requirements well. There are many shortcomings, such as it is inconducive for construction, not real enough, long development cycle, and so on. Aiming at these problems, this paper constructs a quadcopter aircrafts simulation environment based on AirSim, ROS, and PX4. Firstly, this paper introduces AirSim, ROS(Robot Operating System) and PX4 SITL (Software in the Loop). Secondly, this article describes the framework of this work and the communication way between different parts. Thirdly, two similar experiments were separately carried out in the simulation environment and the real environment. Finally, through the comparison of the test results, it proves that this simulation environment is real and efficient.