Simulators

This page describes the simulators used (or tested...) to test system.

2D naive simulator

So far, only a simple 2D kinematic simulator was developped in a few lines.
It is available at https://github.com/baptistelabat/robokite/blob/master/KiteModel/kinematic_kite_model.py.
The kite is represented by a white box on a white background. Kite and background could easily be replaced by images.
The model represents a two lines kite. The difference beetween the two lines can be ajusted by the lateral mouse position.
It does not represent equations of physics.

This simulator enables to have a 2D base of a kite flying.

FreeKiteSim

This is an open source simulator developed by TU Delft. It relies on CGkit for the 3D which is a bit heavy.
https://bitbucket.org/ufechner/freekitesim

kiteEnergySimulator

This is a simulator dedicated to estimate the power which can be retrieved from the wind, based on lift and drag curves. It was developed by Ecole Centrale de Nantes students.
https://github.com/baptistelabat/kiteEnergySimulator

Flightgear and JSBsim

Flightgear is a plane simulator, and JSBsim one of the dynamic models in use. Some development are taking place to add a tether so that any plane or glider can become a kite https://github.com/baptistelabat/kiderwind/tree/master/kider

Simulator to be developed

Parts of the equations can be found in the modeling page

Objective

The idea is not to make a simulator from scratch but to reuse existing environments and add only physical model into it.

Many simulators use ODE (Open Dynamics Engine). A list can be found at http://ode-wiki.org/wiki/index.php?title=Products_that_use_ODE

There are 3 main open source robotic simulators (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robotics_simulator).

• ARS (Autonomous Robot Simulator) has the asset to be in Python.
• VREP is open source but was proprietary
• gazebo is the default simulator of ROS (Robot Operating System).

There is as well Morse which is emerging and based on Blender.

The choice is so far going to gazebo which is already included in ROS.

Current approximation

• Rigid lines
• Rigid kite
• Instantaneous alignment to incoming airflow
• Instantaneous angle of attack equilibrium
• Fixed angle of attack

Current state of development

Future work

Add a socket interface for the kite control with:

• line length (m): example 25l
• control line difference (from -1 to 1): example -1d
• power tuning (from 0 to 1): example 0.4p