Autopilot Design for Software-in-the-Loop Validation of Fixed-wing UAV Guidance Laws
Arun Thomas (TU Delft - Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science)
Simone Baldi – Mentor (TU Delft - Mechanical Engineering)
Michel Verhaegen – Graduation committee member (TU Delft - Mechanical Engineering)
Arjan van Genderen – Graduation committee member (TU Delft - Electrical Engineering, Mathematics and Computer Science)
Ximan Wang – Graduation committee member (TU Delft - Mechanical Engineering)
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Abstract
UnmannedAerial Vehicles(UAVs) have multi-domain applications and fixed-wing UAVs are a widely used class. There is ongoing research on topics in view to optimize the control and guidance of UAVs. This work explores the design, implementation and Software-in-the-Loop validation of an autopilot using adaptive guidance laws with emphasis on formation control of multiple fixed-wing UAVs. The work is done on Raspberry Pis in C++ which can be interfaced to standard autopilots as companion computers. The work splits a mission given by the user into primitive missions and uses an adaptive vector field approach for following it. For formation control, the work implements a discretized version of the Model Reference Adaptive Control synchronisation laws for multi-agent systems. Simulations are done in a distributed setting with a server program designed for the purpose. The server program handles the user inputs and configurations of the UAVs.