AirSimAG: A High-Fidelity Simulation Platform for Air-Ground Collaborative Robotics

2026-03-24

AI Summary

This work addresses the lack of high-fidelity simulation platforms capable of supporting collaborative tasks between unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and unmanned ground vehicles (UGVs), as most existing simulators are designed primarily for single-agent scenarios. To bridge this gap, the authors present the first open-source, high-fidelity UAV-UGV cooperative simulation platform, built upon a deeply customized version of AirSim. The platform integrates multi-agent synchronization mechanisms, heterogeneous sensor emulation, and a unified control interface to ensure cross-modal data consistency. It effectively supports a range of representative collaborative missions—including mapping, planning, tracking, formation control, and exploration—and experimental results validate its efficacy in enabling robust multi-agent coordination and maintaining data fidelity, thereby filling a critical void in high-fidelity simulation tools for heterogeneous robotic teams.

Technology Category

• Intelligent Robots: Multimodal Perception & Sensor Fusion
• Humans and AI: Human-Aware Planning and Behavior Prediction
• Multiagent Systems: Teamwork

Application Category

• Systems and Infrastructure for Web, Mobile and WoT: Applied ML and AI for Web-based mobile applications
• User Modeling, Personalization and Recommendation: User modeling and simulation for interactive and conversational systems
• Responsible Web: Machine-in-the-loop, human agency and autonomy

Abstract

As spatial intelligence continues to evolve, heterogeneous multi-agent systems-particularly the collaboration between Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and Unmanned Ground Vehicles (UGVs), have demonstrated strong potential in complex applications such as search and rescue, urban surveillance, and environmental monitoring. However, existing simulation platforms are primarily designed for single-agent dynamics and lack dedicated frameworks for interactive air-ground collaborative simulation. In this paper, we present AirsimAG, a high-fidelity air-ground collaborative simulation platform built upon an extensively customized AirSim framework. The platform enables synchronized multi-agent simulation and supports heterogeneous sensing and control interfaces for UAV-UGV systems. To demonstrate its capabilities, we design a set of representative air-ground collaborative tasks, including mapping, planning, tracking, formation, and exploration. We further provide quantitative analyses based on these tasks to illustrate the platform effectiveness in supporting multi-agent coordination and cross-modal data consistency. The AirsimAG simulation platform is publicly available at https://github.com/BIULab-BUAA/AirSimAG.

Problem

• air-ground collaboration
• multi-agent simulation
• heterogeneous robotics
• UAV-UGV coordination
• simulation platform

Innovation

• Air-Ground Collaboration
• Heterogeneous Multi-Agent Simulation
• High-Fidelity Simulation
• UAV-UGV Coordination
• Customized AirSim Framework