HUN-REN SZTAKI demonstrated its unique VIL test environment on the II. Domestic Drone Competition

Researchers from HUN-REN SZTAKI (Antal Hiba PhD, Viktor Körtvélyesi, Péter Bauer PhD) made a drone demonstration on the II. Domestic Drone Competition taking place in the Police Academy in Remeteszőlős between 17-18 September 2025.

They demonstrated the so-called Vehicle-in-the-loop (VIL) test environment, which is common in the automotive industry but to the best of our knowledge HUN-REN SZTAKI applies it first for drones. Here, the drone flies over a safe and empty place why it is virtually placed into a city or any dangerous area possibly also with virtual drones around. Images of the onboard sensors are virtually generated based on which the onboard system can make a decision about obstacle or vehicle avoidance. In case of unsuccessful avoidance there is no crash because obstacles are only in the virtual space. Thus, onboard navigation and obstacle avoidance algorithms can be tested and developed safely before real application in cities or congested airspace.

The main challenge in drone VIL environment is the lack of payload capacity and energy sources onboard to run the virtual simulation computer thus it should be placed and operated on the ground. This implies wireless communication between the drone and ground computer sending drone navigation data to the ground and the virtual sensor data (camera / LIDAR) to the drone. This requires a high bandwidth, stable wireless connection and causes delays in the system. Delay effects can be compensated through trajectory extrapolation.

Future application of the VIL test environment can make drone certification possible by checking conformity with pre-defined standard test scenarios.

Photo: NVSZ Facebook-page