The main motivation of this work is to propose a simulation approach for a specific task within the Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) field, i.e., the visual detection and tracking of arbitrary moving objects. In particular, it is described MAT-Fly, a numerical simulation platform for multi-rotor aircraft characterized by the ease of use and control development. The platform is based on Matlab and the MathWorks Virtual Reality (VR) and Computer Vision System (CVS) toolboxes that work together to simulate the behavior of a quad-rotor while tracking a car that moves along a nontrivial path. The VR toolbox has been chosen due to the familiarity that students have with Matlab and because it does not require a notable effort by the user for the learning and development phase thanks to its simple structure. The overall architecture is quite modular so that each block can be easily replaced with others simplifying the code reuse and the platform customization. Some simple testbeds are presented to show the validity of the approach and how the platform works. The simulator is released as open-source, making it possible to go through any part of the system, and available for educational purposes.

翻译：这项工作的主要动机是为无人驾驶航空飞行器(UAV)领域的具体任务提出模拟方法,即目视探测和跟踪任意移动的物体,特别是描述MAT-Fly,这是一个多旋转飞行器的数字模拟平台,其特点是便于使用和控制开发。该平台以Matlab和 MathWorks 虚拟现实(VR)和计算机视觉系统(CVS)工具箱为基础,共同工作模拟四轮旋转器的行为,同时跟踪沿非三角路径行驶的汽车。VR工具箱之所以被选用,是因为学生熟悉Matlab,而且由于结构简单,在学习和开发阶段不需要用户的显著努力。总体结构相当模块化,因此每个街区都可以很容易被其他简化代码再利用和平台定制的工具所取代。一些简单的测试台展示了该方法的正确性,以及该平台如何运行。模拟器作为开放源被放出,可以通过任何部分的教育系统进行。