In recent decade, potential application of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) has
enabled replacement of various operations in hard-to-access areas, such as,
inspection, surveillance or search and rescue applications in challenging and
complex environments. Furthermore, aerial robotics application with multi-agent
systems are anticipated to further extend its potential. However, one of the
major difficulties in aerial robotics applications is the testing of the
elaborated system within safety concerns, especially when multiple agents are
simultaneously applied. Thus, virtual prototyping and simulation-based
development can serve in development, assessment and improvement of the aerial
robot applications. In this research, two examples of the specific applications
are highlighted, harbor structure and facilities inspection with UAV, and
development of autonomous positioning of multi-UAVs communication relaying
system. In this research, virtual prototype was designed and further simulated
in multi-body simulation (MBS) feigning the sensing and actuating equipment
behaviors. Simultaneous simulation of the control and application system
running with software in the loop (SITL) method is utilized to assess the
designed hardware behavior with modular application nodes running in Robot
Operating System. Furthermore, prepared simulation environment is assessed with
multi-agent system, proposed in previous research with autonomous position
control of communication relaying system. Application of the virtual
prototype's simulation environment enables further examination of the proposed
system within comparison degree with postfield tests. The research aims to
contribute through case assessment of the design process to safer, time and
cost-efficient development and application design in the field of aerial
robotics.