Disaster Simulation with Drone Navigation

(CoppeliaSim Project)

Overview

This project simulates a disaster-struck area filled with fallen trees, rocks, and other obstacles, using CoppeliaSim. A quadcopter (drone) equipped with an RGB-D camera navigates the area. The system supports manual control, dataset collection for AI training, and dynamic environment generation.

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Quick Start

# Clone the repository
gh repo clone Jakub-Espandr/disaster-sim-coppeliasim
# Move to directory
cd disaster-sim-coppeliasim
# Install dependencies
pip install -r requirements.txt
# Launch CoppeliaSim with your quadcopter scene
# Then run:
python main.py

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Main Features

• 🛩️ Drone control (WASD + QE keyboard controls for movement and rotation)
• 📷 RGB-D Camera setup (floating view for live RGB images)
• 🌳 Procedural disaster area generation (rocks, standing/fallen trees)
• 🛠️ Configuration menu to adjust scene parameters at runtime
• 🧠 Event-driven depth dataset collection Depth images for machine learning, triggered by simulation events
• 🎮 Interactive control menus for creating, clearing, restarting scenes
• 📊 Status tab with victim detection visualization including direction indicator, elevation, distance, and signal strength
• 🧪 Tool Suite: GUI tools for viewing and preprocessing collected depth datasets, and for generating application icons

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Setup Instructions

1. Install CoppeliaSim 4.9.0.
2. Make sure the zmqRemoteApi plugin is available (standard in 4.6+).
3. Install required Python packages:

pip install -r requirements.txt

4. Start CoppeliaSim with a quadrotor scene containing:

   • Quadcopter model
   • /target dummy
   • /propeller children properly configured

5. Run the simulation:

python main.py

6. Use the keyboard or RC Joystick to interact:
   • Use W/A/S/D + Q/E + Z/SPACEkeys to move and rotate the drone.

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Tools

🧰 Disaster Simulation Tools
Includes utility apps like:

• View_Depth_Image.py – GUI for batch image viewing and flipping
• Icon_Creator.py – Create custom application icons (macOS/Windows friendly)

Run tools using:

python Tools/View_Depth_Image.py
python Tools/Icon_Creator.py

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Dataset Collection Behavior

Event-driven and real-time collection, saved in .npz format.
Refer to dataset format documentation for details.

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Victim Detection Visualization

Comprehensive UI with radar indicators, elevation display, and real-time vector updates.

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Supported Controls

🖥️ Keyboard

Key	Action
W	Move Forward
S	Move Backward
A	Strafe Left
D	Strafe Right
Q	Rotate Left (Yaw)
E	Rotate Right (Yaw)
Space	Move Up
Z	Move Down

🎮 USB RC Transmitter (e.g. Jumper T-PRO v2)

Stick	Control
Left Stick	Throttle / Yaw
Right Stick	Pitch / Roll

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Contributors

• Thomas Lundqvist – System Architect & Developer
• Jakub Espandr – Feature Developer & Testing
• Hieu Tran – Documentation & Management

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License

NCPL License