Development of a 3D Visualization Interface for Virtualized UAVs

Nowadays, Unnamed Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are used in many different fields, ranging from agriculture and entertainment to parcel delivery, among others. For several of these tasks, the UAVs are programmed to follow a specific path, as defined in their flight missions. In addition, as more sophisticated solutions begin to be adopted, new protocols should be developed to handle possible collisions among UAVs, as well as to create UAV swarms. However, directly testing new protocols on UAVs can be hazardous and time consuming. Therefore, many investigators first perform simulations. Although different UAV simulators exists, not all of them offer a 3D rendering of the UAVs in the target flight environment. Hence, in this work, we present a real-time 3D visualization interface that can be easily coupled to any simulator. In this way, we offer developers a powerful way to validate their solutions and make in-depth analysis.