Autopilots for small unmanned aerial vehicles A s

Authors: HaiYang Chao YongCan Cao YangQuan Chen

Publish Date: 2010/02/17

Volume: 8, Issue: 1, Pages: 36-44

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Abstract

This paper presents a survey of the autopilot systems for small or micro unmanned aerial vehicles UAVs The objective is to provide a summary of the current commercial open source and research autopilot systems for convenience of potential small UAV users The UAV flight control basics are introduced first The radio control system and autopilot control system are then explained from both the hardware and software viewpoints Several typical offtheshelf autopilot packages are compared in terms of sensor packages observation approaches and controller strengths Afterwards some open source autopilot systems are introduced Conclusion is made with a summary of the current autopilot market and a remark on the future developmentRecommended by Editor Hyun Seok Yang This work is supported in part by Utah Water Research Lab UWRL Seed Grant 2006–2010 on “Development of Inexpensive UAV Capability for HighResolution Remote Sensing of Land Surface Hydrologic Processes Evapotranspiration and Soil Moisture” The authors would also like to thank the reviewers for their insightful comments that help improve this paperHaiYang Chao received the BS and MS degrees in Electrical Engineering both from Zhejiang University China in 2001 and 2005 respectively He is currently a PhD candidate in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Utah State University His research interests include cooperative control cooperative remote sensing distributed control mobile sensor networks and flight control of unmanned aerial vehiclesYongCan Cao received the BS degree from Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics China in 2003 and the MS degree from Shanghai Jiaotong University China in 2006 He is currently a PhD student in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Utah State University His research interests include cooperative control robotics and unmanned aerial vehiclesYangQuan Chen is currently an associate professor of electrical engineering at Utah State University Logan and the Director of the Center for SelfOrganizing and Intelligent Systems In addition to 13 granted and two pending US patents he has published over 100 refereed journal papers over 20 refereed book chapter papers over 200 refereed conference papers and more than 50 industrial technical reports He has coauthored three research monographs Springer 1999 2007 2009 and six textbooks Tsinghua University Press 2002 2004 2007 2008 SIAM Press 2007 CRC Press 2008 His current areas of research interests include applied fractional calculus distributed measurement and distributed control of distributed parameter systems using mobile actuator and sensor networks mechatronics and controls intelligent optimal robust nonlinear and adaptive UAV multispectral cooperative remote sensing and realtime water management and irrigation control

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