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trol development framework that combines
theoretical design tools and experimental
procedures so that control engineers can eas-
ily synthesized, implement and test flight
controllers on small UAV systems in a safer,
cost effective and time efficient way.
The traditional approach used in manned
aircraft and large UAV system for synthe-
sizing, implementing and validating the
flight control system to achieve desired
objectives is time consuming and resource
intensive. Applying the same techniques
to small UAVs is not productive.
To increase the speed of the development
cycle, simulation through flight test and
improve system reliability and robustness
of the flight control system, it is important
to develop an integrated framework to the
flight control design process with a set of
design tools that enables control engineer
to rapidly synthesize, implement, analyze
and validate a candidate controller design
using iterative development cycles.
The development tools provides a system-
atic approach for an integrated flight con-
The UAV testbed used is a commercial
off-the-shelf (COTS) Radio-Controlled
(RC) plane that has conventional horizon-
tal and vertical tail with rudder and eleva-
tor control surfaces and symmetrical
airfoil wing with aileron control sur-
faces. The propulsion system consists
of a 600 watts electric outrunner motor
used to drive a 12 x 6 propeller.
The UAV is instrumented with a suite of
avionics for the flight control develop-
ment research and testing. The IMU/GPS
sensor provides angular rates, linear accel-
erations, magnetic fields, airspeed, baro-
metric altitude, GPS positions and veloci-
ties measurement data.
The flight computer uses eCos real-time
operating system. Sensor data are acquired
into the flight computer and attitude deter-
Integrated framework for flight control development
Introduction CONTENT
Introduction 1
UAV Testbed 1-2
PIL Simulator 3
MPC 5200
software
4
Simulation
software
5
UAV Testbed
Small UAV System
Research & Development Testbed N O V E M B E R 2 0 0 9 U A V R E S E A R C H G R O U P
UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA
Aerospace Engineering And mechanics
Ultrastick UAV testbed
P A G E 2
UAV Testbed determination is done with the acquired sensor
data. At the same time, the flight computer
outputs Pulse-Width Modulated (PWM) sig-
nals to drive the servo actuators and sends te-
lemetry data information to the wireless data
modem. A failsafe switch board is used as a
safety precaution to switch between flight
computer commands and manual RC pilot
commands.
The cost for the basic Ultrastick RC airplane is
given in Table 1 and Table 2 provides cost for
the UAV avionics system.
UAV physical geometry
Flight avionics system architecture layout
Table 1. Component cost for Ultrastick RC airplane
Component Unit cost Qty Total cost www link
Ultrastick 25e RC plane $ 170.00 1 $ 170.00 http://www.horizonhobby.com
E-flite Power 25 BL Outrunner motor $ 85.00 1 $ 85.00 http://www.horizonhobby.com
Castle Creation Phoenix 45 speed controller $ 102.00 1 $ 102.00 http://www.castlecreations.com
Thunderpower TP4200 3S2PL Li-po battery $ 125.00 1 $ 125.00 http://thunderpowerrc.com
Spektrum DX7 DSM 2 RC system $ 500.00 1 $ 500.00 http://www.spektrumrc.com/
APC 12 x 6E propeller $ 4.00 1 $ 4.00 http://www.apcprop.com
Hitec HS-225BB servo $ 21.00 4 $ 84.00 http://www.hitecrcd.com/
Total $ 1,070.00
Component Unit cost Qty Total cost www link
Phytec-phycore-MPC5200 $ 500.00 1 $ 500.00 http://www.phytec.com
ADIS16405 IMU $ 745.00 1 $ 745.00 http://www.analog.com
Thunderpower TP1320 3SPL Li-po battery $ 45.00 1 $ 45.00 http://thunderpowerrc.com
Crescent OEM GPS board $ 280.00 1 $ 280.00 http://www.hemispheregps.com
RxMux Failsafe board $ 80.00 1 $ 80.00 http://www.acroname.com
Castle Creation BEC 5 volt regulator $ 22.00 1 $ 22.00 http://www.castlecreations.com
Xtend OEM RF Modules $ 499.00 1 $ 499.00 http://www.digi.com
Total $ 2,171.00
Table 2. Component cost for UAV avionics system
Processor-in-the-loop Simulator P A G E 3
The PIL simulator setup includes the actual embedded flight computer with the simulation environment
outputting sensor data through a communication link to the target processor that executes the embedded
software code in real-time. The flight computer uses the fed back sensor data to generate control signals
which are sent back to the simulation model using another communication link to control the nonlinear
UAV simulation model. This approach provides an intermediate step to test the synthesized controller on
actual hardware target processor before the controller is put on actual flight test. The hardware compo-
nent list for the PIL setup is given Table 3.
Processor-in-the-loop system architecture
Table 3. Processor-in-the-loop hardware component list
Phytec MPC 5200 software P A G E 4
The required software needed to load, install and develop applications for the Phyetec MPC5200b-tiny using eCos (embedded
configurable operating system) in Windows XP operating system are listed in the Table 4.
The tftp server is required to load embedded programs trough Ethernet. You could use any tftd server different to
Tftp32. Also, Hyperterminal could be replaced by other serial communication software. The required software needed
to load, install and develop applications over the Phyetec MPC5200b-tiny in GNU/Linux operating system are listed
in the Table 5. The tftp server is required to load embedded programs through Ethernet. You can use any tftd server
different to tftd-hpa. Also, Cutecom can be replaced by other serial communication software.
eCos and RedBoot software are the same for Windows XP and GNU/Linux operating systems, under windows XP
eCos runs using Cygwin as Linux emulator. The functions of Cutecom and Hyperterminal are to communicate with
the embedded board and it is possible to use other program to replace Hyperterminal and Cutecom.
Table 4. Software tools for MPC5200 installation and development Table 5. Software tools for GNU/Linux
Processor-in-the-loop simulator setup
PIL Simulation Software P A G E 5
The Simulation model needs a timer counter card, NI PCI6602, to run. It is recommended to use a desktop computer
with the following specification:
• At least 1 GB of RAM memory
• At least 2 GHz Processor
• At least 128 MB Graphic card
Table 6 shows the required software to run the simulation using Matlab Real-time Windows Target Toolbox.
Table 6. Software tools required for simulation computer
107 Akerman Hall
110 Union St SE
Minneapolis, MN 55455-0153
Phone: 612-625-6561
Fax: 612-626-1558
E-mail: balas@aem.umn.edu
UAV webpage: http://www.aem.umn.edu/~uav/
Aerospace Engineering & Mechanics
University of Minnesota