Copyright (C) 2019 Bartomeu Rubí, Adrián Ruiz, Ramon Pérez, Bernardo Morcego

Path-Flyer is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 3, or (at your option) any later version.

Path-Flyer is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU General Public License for more details.

You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License along with the benchmark files. If not, see http://www.gnu.org/licenses/.

Authors: Bartomeu Rubı́, Adrián Ruiz, Ramon Pérez, Bernardo Morcego. Specific Center of Research CS2AC at Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya (UPC). Rbla Sant Nebridi 22, Terrassa (Spain).

This benchmark allows to compare multiple path following algorithms in the same scenarios with flexibility.

Path-Flyer has been build upon the Quad-Sim platform, a quadrotor simulation tool developed on the Drexdel University for simulation and control of quadrotors. That is, it has been improved and modified to have a realistic mathematical and dynamic model of the quadrotor and its environment, to implement a proper structure to solve the path following problem and include various path following algorithms, and to incorporate new functionalities suited for the present benchmark.

Some key features of Path-Flyer are:

• It has a complete and experimentally validated model of the Asctec Hummingbird Quadrotor.

• Wind disturbance and noise on the measured states are modeled and can be customized.

• Four path following algorithms; Non-linear Guidance Law (NLGL), Carrot-Chasing and its adaptive versions have been implemented.

• Path following algorithms can be tested in diverse simulation scenarios.

• A user interface helps the user to modify test conditions and to explore simulation results.

• It is modular and programmable, meaning that new path following algorithms and/or reference paths can be incorporated with ease.

In the User Guide it is found how to install the benchmark, how to use the user interface, how to modify parameters such as wind disturbance or noise, how to program a new algorithm and how to incorporate new path references.

Hope you find it useful. If you have any doubts do not hesitate to contact us.

More information about the mathematical model of the quadrotor and its environment, the implemented path following algorithms and control structure, and the validation process of the Path-Flyer platform in the following publication:

Rubí B., Ruiz, A., Pérez, R. and Morcego, B. (2019). Path-Flyer: A Benchmark of Quadrotor Path Following Algorithms. In 2019 15th IEEE International Conference on Control and Automation (ICCA).