2013 IEEE International Symposium on Industrial Electronics (or similar proceedings; also available as an independent technical report)

Real-Time Hardware-in-the-Loop Simulation of a Fixed-Wing Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Using X-Plane

This paper presents a hardware-in-the-loop (HIL) simulation platform for UAV development. The authors specifically use X-Plane 10 as the flight dynamics and visualization engine, citing its realistic aerodynamic modeling (blade element theory) and open plugin architecture via UDP. They connect a real autopilot hardware (ArduPilot) to X-Plane 10, simulating sensor data, GPS, and actuator responses in real time.