VR-01

Aircraft Ranger EX Volatex RC

This work seeks the study, documentation and development of cooperative control techniques for unmanned aerial vehicles in order to enable three fixed-wing aircraft to fly, autonomously, in squadron formation.

The use of multiple unmanned aerial vehicles in missions such as surveillance, monitoring and searches can make them faster and more likely to succeed. For this, it is necessary that the UAVs communicate with each other and have a control strategy that determines what each one should do. This project includes three fixed-wing UAVs available at the Laboratory of Aerial Robotics at the University of Brasilia, which should be studied and implemented cooperative control techniques in the embedded hardware and software.

The complete system is constituted by four sub-systems: three aircraft and a base station. The communication between those sub-systems is carried out through communication radios. Each subsystem has its own communication modem and has the ability to communicate directly with any other subsystem.

Each aircraft has two main components that are worth mentioning. One of them is the autopilot, a device responsible for the acquisition, conditioning and processing of signals from the aircraft’s sensors and for controlling the aircraft’s actuators. The other is the embedded computer, responsible for data processing, control of the planes (individual control of each plane or cooperative control between the three planes) and for communication with the others sub-systems through the communication radios.

Autopilot

• Autopilot
  • Introduction
  • Basic Concepts
  • Sensors
  • Pixhawk Specifications
• Autopilot Configuration
  • QGroundControl
  • Firmware
  • Airframe
  • Connections
  • Mounting the Pixhawk
  • AutoPilot Calibration
  • Automatic Landing

Embedded computer

• Embedded System
  • Embedded Computer
  • Operational System
  • Installing the Operating System
  • Getting started with Gumstix Overo

Using the embedded computer

• Using the embedded computer
  • Getting used to Linux
  • Cross-compilation
  • Registers
  • Serial Communication

References

• ROCHA, E. M. C. Desenvolvimento de um sistema com veículos aéreos não-tripulados autônomos. Faculdade de Tecnologia, Universidade de Brasília, 2017.
• CORDEIRO, T. F. K. Desenvolvimento de um sistema com veículos aéreos não-tripulados autônomos. Faculdade de Tecnologia, Universidade de Brasília, 2018.
• PITA, H. C. Desenvolvimento de sistema de comunicação multiplataforma para veículos aéreos de asa fixa. Faculdade de Tecnologia, Universidade de Brasília, 2018.
• PX4 Autopilot User Guide - docs.px4.io
• QGroundControl User Guide - qgroundcontrol.com
• Ardupilot Docs - ardupilot.org
• RT-MaG Project - gipsa-lab.fr
• Yocto Project - yoctoproject.org
• Getting Started - Gumstix COM - gumstix.com
• Gumstix, Inc - GitHub - github.com