Currently I am working with simulating the project in ArduPilot and then taking it to hardware. ArduPilot SITL is one way to simulate the flight and the sensors. I am pretty sure that the SITL does have a Laser scanner simulator but am not sure what is its field of view. The process to download and run SITL on a Ubuntu 16.04 is as follows:

• Open Terminal and clone the git repository.

git clone git://github.com/ArduPilot/ardupilot.git
cd ardupilot 
git submodule update --init --recursive

•  The next step depends on the operating system that you are using. Go to the installation instructions for your OS on Ardupilot website for more details. For Ubuntu 16.04 you just need to run a script:

cd ardupilot
cd Tools/scripts
./install-prereqs-ubuntu.sh

•  Add the following to the end of your bashrc file and source it.

export PATH=$PATH:$HOME/ardupilot/Tools/autotest
export PATH=/usr/lib/ccache:$PATH
. ~/.bashrc

• Start the simulator.

cd ardupilot/ArduCopter
sim_vehicle.py -w  #to load the default parameters
sim_vehicle.py --console --map

 The copter can be run in several modes: 

1. Guided: To run in Guided mode do the following.

mode guided
arm throttle
takeoff 40 

For more detailed commands and information goto:

http://ardupilot.org/dev/docs/copter-sitl-mavproxy-tutorial.html

2. Auto: For navigating the copter in Auto mode do the following:

wp load ..\Tools\autotest\copter_mission.txt
arm throttle
mode auto
rc 3 1500