Evaluation of a Weather Plugin in Gazebo: A Case-Study of a Wind Influence on PX4-Based UAV Performance

Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) are utilized in a wide range of real-world applications including search and rescue missions, 3D mapping, building inspection and reconstruction. In a real-world environment, severe weather conditions significantly impact UAV operations. Wind is one of the most dangerous weather factors that can destabilize and even destroy a UAV. Preparing UAV flight algorithms for real-world conditions in order to minimize risks of damage and malfunctioning is a crucial part of a UAV system development. This paper analyses a wind influence on UAV virtual model performance within the Gazebo simulator. The paper focuses on gazebo_wind_plugin package used for creating a windy virtual environment. PX4-LIRS package is used for simulating a UAV within the Gazebo. Three types of experiments were run to evaluate capabilities of the plugin to simulate typical issues that arise in real-world scenarios: a UAV wind resistance, a wind effect on a UAV tilt angle and on a flight velocity. Virtual experiments demonstrated that gazebo_wind_plugin could serve for PX4 UAV flight scenarios modeling in Gazebo simulation with a satisfactory level of realism.