An embedded real time system for autonomous flight control

1. AN EMBEDDED REAL-TIME
SYSTEM FOR AUTONOMOUS
FLIGHT CONTROL
Presented by
N.VINOTHINI
S.SORNA LAKSHMI

2. OBJECTIVE
 Our aim is to control flight system by using
autonomous aircraft model.
 This application is implemented on top of a
real-time operating system suitable for
embedded microprocessors, which manages
to sensory acquisition, flight control,
communication, and resource management
(including energy).

3. CONTENTS
 INTRODUCTION
 SYSTEM DESCRIPTION
A. Onboard controller
B. The real-time kernel
C. Sensors and actuators
D. Wireless communication system
 THE CONTROL APPLICATION
A. Sensor data capture
B. Actuators control
C. Real-time issues
 POWER MANAGEMENT
A. Dynamic voltage scheduling
B. Peripheral I/O
C. Kernel support
 CONCLUSION

4. INTRODUCTION
 This paper performs both autonomous
navigation and mission related activities, and it
allow easy interchange of sensors and for
adapting the vehicle to different monitoring
applications.
The aircraft model has two flight modes: manual
and autonomous.
 Manual mode,
 Autonomous flight mode.
 The application is implemented on the Erika Enterprise
real-time kernel with limited onboard resources.

5. SYSTEM DESCRIPTION:

6. System description
 The system performs
 sensory acquisition
 uses such data to trigger the motors for speed
 direction control during autonomous flight,
 control the power consumption of the external
devices
 send the relevant sensor information to the
ground station.

7. On board controller
 Microchip’s dsPIC 30F6014 microcontroller
 integrates the control features of a Micro-
Controller Unit (MCU) with Digital Signal Processor
(DSP).
 It is a 16-bit microcontroller with a maximum
processing power of 30 MIPS.
 program memory space of 144 Kbytes, a data
memory space of 8 Kbytes, and a non-volatile data
EEPROM of 4 Kbytes
 The MCU power management system allows
two modes, idle and sleep.
 The idle mode disables the CPU
 In the sleep mode, both the CPU and the system
clock source are disabled.

8. The real-time kernel
 ERIKA (Embedded Real time Kernel
Architecture) Enterprise real-time kernel. T
 configurable both in terms of services and
kernel objects (tasks, resources, and events).
 achieving a minimal memory footprint of 2
Kbytes.
 available for a wide variety of 8, 16, and 32 bit
CPUs.
 Two layers:
 HAL
 Kernel Layer

9. Sensors and actuators
 The microcontroller is connected to several
sensors.
 3 gyroscopes, one for each axis
 2 pressure sensors one inclinometer
 MMC (Multimedia Card) memory module
 digital 3-axis accelerometer
 temperature sensor
 GPS module
 wireless communication module
 video camera and infrared camera
 The microcontroller integrates the busses SPI
and I2C

10. Wireless communication system
 The data communication module-To exchange
information with the ground station.
 Two independent video channels for the
normal and infrared cameras.
 The receiver for manual control -normal
manual operations.
 A dedicated channel -to select the
manual/autonomous navigation mode.
 The solution adopted control separates the
manual control system from the
microcontroller.

11. THE CONTROL APPLICATION

12.  The UAV has six
degrees of
freedom, 3 linear
and 3 rotational
 sufficiently high
frequency (80 Hz)
control.

13. POWER MANAGEMENT
 All the systems are
powered by 2 different
battery packs.
 one for the receiver, the
manual/auto selection
custom board, the
throttle motor and flaps
servomotors.
 The second feeds sensors
and control board.
 monitoring based on
the Texas Instruments
bq27200 chip( Li-Ion
and Li-Pol ).

14. Dynamic voltage scheduling
 To save energy.
 By alternating two discrete clock frequencies,
 A PWM signal, to obtain the optimal clock value.
 To calculate different speeds.
 A combination of those two.
off-line calculation of the optimal
working speed is integrated by on-line
reclamation techniques.

15.  PERIPHERAL I/O
 Power consumption ranges from 1 up to 4
orders of magnitudes between enabled
and disabled modes
 A source of energy wasting is idle listening
and packet collisions
 KERNEL SUPPORT
 To get the maximum and minimum power
level
 To get the power level required by a
running, ready or idle task;
 To set the power level for a device
 To set/get the power level required by the
task

16. CONCLUSION
 This paper describes a real-time control
system for the autonomous flight of model
aircrafts.
 The description focuses on all the relevant
architecture components. The hardware
platform and software platform
 The platform is flexible enough to allow
changing the application specific sensors to
adapt the aircraft to other purposes, such as
surveillance or different monitoring activities