Simulating Airborne Sensors Using Graphics Hardware

Abstract

We describe a framework for simulating a variety of airborne sensors using a unified approach based on modern computer graphics hardware. Recently, this framework was employed as a test-bed for helicopter sensory setups. Making heavy use of recent technologies like vertex and fragment shaders different sensors like millimeter wave radar, lidar and 3D radar can be simulated in real time on a standard workstation PC. This includes generation of radar shadows. Furthermore, the radar module implements a novel Phong-like approach for modeling the mean normalized radar cross section (RCS). The new model is intuitive by making use of categories of diffuse and specular reflections. While being computational more efficient than previous approaches it is composed of only few parameters. We give example setups for different types of terrain. We conclude with a demonstration of different sensors.