RflySimSaT: A Safety Assessment Platform for UAVs Based on Hardware-in-the-Loop Simulation

As unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) lead the way in the development of future digital smart cities, they continue to face scrutiny due to safety concerns. While robotics simulators offer UAVs efficient and cost-effective testing environments, they often lack comprehensive safety design considerations and user testing requirements. In this study, we introduce RflySimSaT, a dedicated safety testing platform for UAVs that addresses safety factors throughout the entire lifecycle. This platform incorporates diverse fault testing scenarios, high-fidelity dynamic models, an integrated safety assessment framework, standardized testing procedures, and customizable interfaces. The modular architecture and deployment of RflySimSaT facilitate plug-and-play cross-platform closed-loop safety testing. Users simply need to supply their aircrafts and autopilots, enabling them to efficiently navigate the phases of development, deployment, testing, and assessment using the customizable modules and standardized processes offered by the platform. To validate RflySimSaT’s credibility and versatility, we designed various test cases that demonstrate its practicality and scalability. Additionally, we provide a comprehensive user manual, detailed case studies, and a rich fault dataset. The platform is open-source and available at: https://github.com/RflySim/RFlySimSafe/tree/RflySimSaT.