Simulating a Multi-Agent UAV System Coordinated by State Machines Using Godot
Leo Howard, Fuhua Oscar Lin, Henry Leung · 2024
Unmanned aerial vehicles have advanced quickly and are now a dominant force in several domains, including military, security, and even logistics. 3D simulations with virtual environments are cost effective tools for assessing feasibility and costs of developing new systems or upgrading current systems. This is especially true for multiagent or swarm systems that require many agents working in concert. The total costs can be much higher when only physical prototypes are used for testing and analysis. There are existing 3D libraries for aiding with UAV simulations, but they’re too specialized; it is difficult to create highly customized virtual environments with these packages. A simulation development framework needs to be capable and stable for accurate simulations yet generalized enough that any types of simulations can be developed without exhausting efforts. This paper explores the feasibility and ease of using Godot, an open-source game engine, to develop a simulation that can assess the function of a multiagent UAV system. It is found that the Godot engine is a powerful tool that is both accurate and generalized enough to develop highly customizable UAV simulation. This allows verification and testing of UAV designs and control algorithms in highly customizable and flexible virtual environments, using a free open-sourced tool.