Firefly Eindhoven - Three-Drone Visualization and Simulation

* Detail the Simulink simulation environment

Introduction to the 3D World Editor

The three-dimensional of visualization of the complete show was made using the 3D World Editor tool of Matlab/Simulink. 3D world editor is a VRML (Virtual Reality Modeling Language) editor. The simulink block that is used for making 3D animations is called VRSink. This can be located in the Simulink 3D Animation in the library browser in Simulink.

Clicking on the VR Sink block opens a dialogue box. And then using the 'New' button opens the 3D World Editor where the complete 3D Animation can be created. Once the simulation environment has been created, the environment can be saved as a .wrl file. This can be then be added as a source file for the VR Sink block. The animation created using this editor will be static and the movement objects is done via connecting the other simulink blocks to the VR Sink block.

%%%% Picture of 3D World Editor %%%%%%

Making the Simulation Environment

Colour Codes for Axis:

1. Red Arrow: x-axis

2. Green Arrow: y-axis

3. Blue Arroe: z-axis

Under the Root node, any object can be added as a Transform. For instance adding a block or box can done under this hierarchical order:

 Transform
   children 
      Shape
         appearance
            Appearance
               material
                  Material
               texture
               textureTransform
            Geometry
               Box 

The group prepared two simulation environments. One which represents the Robot Soccer Field and the other looked like TMC Location for the Drone Show at the TMC Event.

%%%%%% Picture of the Soccer Field Visualization %%%%%%%%%

%%%%%% Picture of the TMC Location Visualization %%%%%%%%%%%%%

TMC Location Visualization

The visualization used to the TMC Event represents the environment of the location. The simulation consists of the following transforms:

1. UWB1

2. UWB2

3. UWB3

4. Ground

5. BackWall

6. RightNet

7. LeftNet

8. Quad1

9. Quad2

10. Quad3

11. Shadow1

12. Shadow2

13. Shadow3

14. CornerA (Viewpoint)

15. CornerB (Viewpoint)

16. CornerC (Viewpoint)

17. South (Viewpoint)

18. SouthLarge (View point)

19. West (Viewpoint)

20. WestLarge (Viewpoint)

21. East (Viewpoint)

22. EastLarge (Viewpoint)

23. North (Viewpoint)

24. NorthLarge (Viewpoint)

25. Top (Viewpoint)

The Ground and the Backwall Tranforms are just collection of two blocks with very small thickness but very large width and height. Compared to the Ground, the Backwall is just rotated along the y-axis by 90 degrees.

Setting up manually by altering the values of Pos and Dir vectors one by one is very tedious and difficult. Therefore one the objects are set, it is possible to open the VR Sink block as a visualization where by using the mouse it is possible to adjust the viewpoint. Once the correct viewpoint is selected it is possible to save the current view as a viewpoint by clicking on 'Create Viewpoint' in the Viewpoint menu in the top pane of the window.

%%%%%%%%% Image of the VR Sink Simulation Window %%%%%%%%%%

The Drone used in the simulation were created using cylinders and blocks. Each drone has four arms and a hull. Each arm consists of five cylinders. And the Hull is just a box. In addition, each drone also consists of 88 LEDs, 22 per arm. These LEDs are also blocks added manually.

The shadow of each drone is a thin cylinder that has the same translation input as the Drone, but with the values of 'z' fixed to 0.4.

The Nets are also cylinders with very small radius and large heights placed closed to each other. And the Ultra-Wide Band units and beacons are also made using cylinders and blocks.

In order to receive signals from the blocks external to the VR Sink block, open the VR Sink block and in the simulation menu in the top pane click on block parameters.

This will open the Parameters of the VR Sink block. In the virtual world tree, the check boxes behind the transform parameters represent whether the the VR Sink will have an input port corresponding to that signal or not. Checking the checkbox creates an input port in the VR Sink block via which it is possible to have variable values of those parameters.

The LED patterns for the simulation can be obtained by feeding the RGB Values of the LEDs using the LED Pattern files, where these RGB values change over simulation time. This is also how the translation and orientation for the drones and the shadows is achieved in the simulation.

• Explain the blocks from a high-level overview and their respective interconnections